The Routledge Handbook of the History of Race and the American Military 2015043654, 9781138016019, 9781315794044

Citation preview

THE ROUTLEDGE HANDBOOK OF THE HISTORY OF RACE AND THE AMERICAN MILITARY

The Routledge Handbook of the History of Race and the American Military provides an important overview of the main themes surrounding race in the American military establishment from the colonial era to the late twentieth century. By broadly incorporating the latest research on race and ethnicity into the field of military history, the book explores the major advances that have taken place in the past few decades at the intersection of these two fields. The discussion goes beyond the study of battles and generals to look at the other peoples who were involved in American military campaigns and analyzes how African Americans, Native Americans, Asian Americans, and Chicanos helped shape the course of American History—both at home and on the battlefield. The book also includes coverage of American imperial ambitions and the national response to encountering other peoples in their own countries. The Routledge Handbook of the History of Race and the American Military defines how the history of race and ethnicity impacts military history, over time and comparatively, while encouraging scholarship on specific groups, periods, and places. This important collection presents a comprehensive survey of the current state of the field. Geoffrey W. Jensen is an Assistant Professor of History at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University.

THE ROUTLEDGE HISTORY HANDBOOKS

Forthcoming: The Routledge Handbook of the History of the Middle East Mandates Edited by Cyrus Schayegh and Andrew Arsan The Routledge Handbook of the History of Settler Colonialism Edited by Edward Cavanagh and Lorenzo Veracini The Routledge Handbook of Spatial History Edited by Ian Gregory, Don DeBats and Don Lafreniere The Routledge Handbook of Big History Edited by Craig Benjamin, Esther Quaedackers and David Baker The Routledge Handbook of Medieval Rural Life Edited by Miriam Muller

THE ROUTLEDGE HANDBOOK OF THE HISTORY OF RACE AND THE AMERICAN MILITARY

Edited by Geoffrey W. Jensen

First published 2016 by Routledge 711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017 and by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2016 Taylor & Francis The right of the editor to be identified as the author of the editorial material, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Jensen, Geoffrey, 1965– editor. Title: The Routledge handbook of the history of race and the American military / Geoffrey W. Jensen, editor. Description: New York, NY : Routledge, [2016] Identifiers: LCCN 2015043654 | ISBN 9781138016019 (hardback) | ISBN 9781315794044 (ebook) Subjects: LCSH: United States. Army—Minorities—History. | United States. Army—African American troops—History. | United States—Armed Forces—Minorities—History. | United States—Race relations—History. Classification: LCC UB417 .R68 2016 | DDC 355.0089/00973—dc23 LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2015043654 ISBN: 978-1-138-01601-9 (hbk) ISBN: 978-1-315-79404-4 (ebk) Typeset in Bembo by Apex CoVantage, LLC

To my family and friends whose loving support and confidence in me made this work possible.

This page intentionally left blank

CONTENTS

List of Maps List of Figures List of Tables Acknowledgments

xi xiii xv xvii

Introduction: The Importance of Examining Race through the Study of American Military History Geoffrey W. Jensen

1

PART I

Early Encounters: From the Colonial Era to the Mexican-American War 1 “So Necessary That We Could Not Hold the Country Without Them”: Indian and Colonial Military Cooperation in the Colonial Southeast Julie Anne Sweet 2 African Americans and the American Revolution Michael Lee Lanning 3 Race and Republicanism: Understanding the Mindset of the Mexican War Soldier Richard Bruce Winders

vii

13

15

27

37

Contents PART II

All for the Union or All for Dixie? Minority Service throughout the Civil War and Reconstruction

49

4 The Debate before the Fight: Black Northerners and the Question of Enlistment Brian Taylor

51

5 Warriors or Soldiers? Native American Combatants in the Civil War West Clarissa W. Confer

63

6 “We Did Our Duty as Men Should”: African Americans in the Civil War David Williams

73

7 Race and Irregular Warfare on the Trans-Mississippi Border, 1861–1865 Matthew M. Stith

85

8 Bottom Rail on Top: Black Union Soldiers in the Army of Occupation, 1865–1867 Donald R. Shaffer 9 “Our Brave and Ever to Be Remembered Soldiers”: The Contested Legacy of Black Union Military Service in the Post-Civil War South Paul E. Coker

95

103

PART III

From Empire to Ridding the World of Tyranny: Race and War during the Early Twentieth Century 10 From Black Regulars to Buffalo Soldiers: The Emergence of a Legend Frank N. Schubert

113 115

11 “Are Not My Men the Same?”: Race, Ethnic Identity, and Pawnee Indian Military Service during the Indian Wars Mark van de Logt

127

12 Buffalo Soldiers in Africa: African American Officers in Liberia, 1910–1942 Brian G. Shellum

139

13 “Only America Left Her Negro Troops Behind”: The African American Military Experience in the First World War John H. Morrow, Jr.

151

viii

Contents

14 Of Codes and Culture: The Navajo Experience in World War II Robert S. McPherson 15 Nisei Who Said “No”: Japanese American Draft Resistance in World War II Eric L. Muller

161

171

PART IV

Race and the Military during the American Century: Post-World War II Politics, Racial Desegregation, the African American Vietnam Experience, and Latino Service in the Armed Forces 16 “The Veterans’ Angle”: Ninety-Third Division Ex-GI Vasco Hale, Disability, and the NAACP’s Struggle for Fair Housing and Power in Post-World War II Hartford, Connecticut Robert F. Jefferson, Jr.

181

183

17 The Political, the Personal, and the Cold War: Harry Truman and Executive Order 9981 Geoffrey W. Jensen

191

18 The Navy’s Search for Black Officers through ROTC and the Edge of Institutional Change Isaac W. Hampton II

201

19 African Americans and the Vietnam War Era James Westheider

213

20 The Right to Bear Arms: Enlisting Chicanos into the U.S. Military, 1940–1980 Steven Rosales

223

Contributors Index

235 239

ix

This page intentionally left blank

MAPS

1.1 “A New Map of Georgia, with Part of Carolina, Florida and Louisiana. Drawn from Original Draughts, Assisted by the Most Approved Maps and Charts. Collected by Eman: Bowne, Geographer to His Majesty (1748).” 3.1 Smith’s Atlas, for Schools, Academies and Families: An Atlas to Accompany The Productive Geography, by Roswell Chamberlain Smith 5.1 Historical Atlas of Oklahoma, by John W. Morris, Charles R. Goins, and Edwin C. McReynolds

xi

16 38 64

This page intentionally left blank

FIGURES

10.1 The 10th Cavalry’s Regimental Crest, Designed and Adopted in 1911 18.1 National NROTC Disenrollments by Year and Reason, 1968–1969 18.2 National NROTC Disenrollments by Year and Reason, 1972–1973

xiii

118 206 207

This page intentionally left blank

TABLES

3.1 Author Created Content Based on Smith’s Atlas, for Schools, Academies and Families: An Atlas to Accompany The Productive Geography 10.1 Buffalo Soldier Statuary in the West 18.1 Navy Enlisted Scientific Education 20.1 Mean Differences between Veteran and Non-Veteran Income in Specific Occupational Groups 20.2 Mean Differences in Income between Mexican American Veterans/ Non-Veterans and Anglo Veterans/Non-Veterans 20.3 Attitudes toward Discrimination (Hispanics Only, Percent Responding “Agree” and “Strongly Agree”)

xv

39 122 205 225 225 230

This page intentionally left blank

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Any undertaking such as this is only possible with a great deal of help and support. The concept behind this work was born during a discussion at the 2013 Society for Military History Annual Conference that I had with Kimberly Guinta, then Senior Editor of History of the Americas for Routledge, over the need for a study on the history of race in the American military. From that moment on, whether it was Kim, Genevieve Aoki, or Margo Irvin, I have received outstanding support from the Routledge editorial team. Equally supportive, the contributors of this volume have demonstrated tremendous encouragement, excitement, good humor, and passion for their respective subjects and have helped me to understand how it all fits together. They truly made the volume, and it was my honor to serve as their editor. I owe a great debt to the Dean of the College of Security and Intelligence Studies at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, Dr. Phil Jones, who has repeatedly supported and encouraged my growth in this profession, but also, and rather graciously and importantly, for granting me a much needed course release so that I could complete edits on the volume in the Spring of 2015. To my colleagues and my students who supported my work and ramblings about it, you have my deep appreciation. Special thanks also goes out to Patrick Williams at the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, for providing some much needed advice and humor to me about the world of editing. Lastly, I want to thank my family, most sincerely, my wife, Beth, and our dog, Chloe, for their unwavering commitment to my work. Both offered encouragement and laughter when I needed it the most. Geoffrey W. Jensen Prescott Valley, AZ Fall 2015

xvii

This page intentionally left blank

INTRODUCTION The Importance of Examining Race through the Study of American Military History Geoffrey W. Jensen

“Now, gentlemen,” the president of the American Historical Association and former President of the United States, Theodore Roosevelt, began, “I believe most emphatically that we ought to have a proper history of the United States Army, a proper military history of the United States.” It could not be a solitary history or an ancillary product of American history, the former Rough Rider believed. It had to be a part of the larger history of the republic. It was to be written by military men and civilians, the latter having the unique ability to separate themselves from the subject in ways, Roosevelt mused, that soldier-scholars could not. Here he meant that civilians unshackled from the duties of soldiering could provide an earnest study of “our national shortcomings, not only governmental, but popular, and point out truthfully what those national shortcomings have cost us in this country when war came upon us.”1 Writing over a hundred years after Roosevelt, I am not suggesting in any way that we only allow civilians the opportunity to write about our nation’s shortcomings, whether politically, socially, or militarily. After all, we have seen in recent years, American active duty military personnel contribute excellent studies that have opened our minds about aspects of the United States’ past.2 I cite Roosevelt because I agree that we should continue to unshackle ourselves from the practice of segregating American military history from the larger historical themes within the overarching narrative of American history. In part this might be necessary for reasons that Robert Citino made blatantly obvious to all in “Military Histories Old and New: A Reintroduction” (2007). In his essay, Citino noted that military history as a profession had been muscled out in many ways by other competing historical fields because it was believed to be lacking in intellectual sophistication; a concern amongst military historians of Roosevelt’s era as well. Like good warriors, though, the historians of our profession adjusted to the conditions confronting them from all sides. Around the time of the rise of the New Social History in the 1960s, members of our profession facilitated and contributed to the growth of the New Military History, a point of view where conflict takes a backseat to social, cultural, racial, gender, and other questions. The study of War and Society, as it is now more commonly known, represents one pole holding up the “big tent” of American military history.3 Just as Roosevelt saw military history as an important part of the larger field of American history, the authors of this volume and those that came before us see it as an integral inroad into further works on race, gender, socioeconomic concerns, and societal change. When the contributors of The Routledge Handbook of the History of Race and the American Military say “American 1

Geoffrey W. Jensen

military history,” we see it not only as a study of the social aspects of military service, but as an examination of the entire military apparatus within American society. Moreover, and as displayed in this volume, military service is not necessary to define a subject closely associated with the study of War and Society. With that in mind, this volume includes works discussing the role of veterans and resisters alongside those of combat and conflict, and the pursuit of social equality. An important aspect in the development of the study of race by War and Society historians has been the analysis of motivations for racial minority service in the American military. Indeed, since the establishment of the republic, racial minorities have served in the military and in the majority of the nation’s wars. They served for reasons that all men and women who have joined the military would recognize. They did it for the economic opportunity for themselves and their families, the retirement and benefits that came with their sacrifice, the societal advancement that long-term service provided, the excitement and adventure of warfare, and moreover, an idea racial minorities certainly were not immune from, an earnest desire to fight, and if necessary, perish, for one’s country. Above all of these reasons, they served out of a desire to achieve social and political equality for their race. A stint in the armed forces served, as Steven Rosales observes, as a “social contract” between the nation and that minority soldier, their family, and indeed, their community. The quest for societal acceptance through military service has often been told through the experiences of the African American community. Blacks, however, were not alone in their pursuit. Asian Americans, Latino Americans, and Native Americans also sought careers in the military for similar reasons. They all believed that by serving in the armed forces, especially during periods of conflict, that they were proving themselves worthy of full citizenship to white America. While the promise and privileges that came with a military career were not lost on racial minorities, the white majority of the nation, especially those in charge of the military, did not share this sentiment. For a long period of time, the white leadership of the armed forces remained wed to the concept of a lily-white military that only accepted splashes of color when the situation deemed it necessary. This philosophy began with the American Revolutionary War and held true until the late twentieth century. Racism, unwillingness to challenge the social norms of regions within the United States, and a lack of a cohesive and comprehensive policy from the Executive Office prior to Harry Truman’s Executive Order 9981, which began the racial desegregation of the military, created an environment hostile to racial reform activities. It was likely that many white commanding officers throughout the era of racial segregation in the armed forces agreed with the Commandant of the Marine Corps, Thomas Holcomb, when he quipped in 1941, “If it were a question of having a Marine Corps of 5,000 whites and 250,000 Negroes, I would rather have the whites.” This does not mean whatsoever that there were not those who wished to aid minority soldiers and their families by reforming the military. Those that did so were often in the minority of their own race, however. Change would come, as we shall see, but it came slowly, gradually, and proved a struggle for all those involved in making it happen.4 There are other themes that emerge from studying race through the history of the American military. In this volume, the exploration of those themes begins with Julie Anne Sweet’s chapter on the tenuous relationship between the colonial government of Georgia and the Native American warriors they relied upon to help protect it. Much like the colony itself, Sweet’s chapter resides at a crossroads of sorts. Her study is firmly entrenched in the realm of colonial history, where the interplay between British colonials, Native Americans, and rival European forces are played out on the North American continent. Along with this clash of cultural identities comes the inevitable cultural misunderstandings surrounding Native American behaviors on the battlefield, such as the taking of war trophies or, in the minds of English colonials, the inexplicable refusal of Indian warriors to follow simple orders. These misunderstandings were not limited to this era. All contributors discussing Native American military service highlight the inability of 2

Introduction

white American military commanders to come to grips with the cultural beliefs and practices of their Indian allies. Conversely, though they could not always understand the behaviors of their Native American colleagues, Sweet notes her belief that English colonials, soon to become American revolutionaries, adapted to the Native American way of war, which runs counter to those in the historical profession that suggest that they instead reacted to it.5 The chapters involving Native American subjects have expunged past racist ideas of the “noble savage” or victim-centric tales. Since the rise of the New Social History in the 1960s, American Indian historians have flipped the viewpoint from the traditional Eurocentric or Anglocentric to the Native American and have explored the various cultural differences of all the racial groups involved. This is the school of thought that has given us Richard White’s The Middle Ground: Indians, Empires, and Republics in the Great Lakes Region, 1650–1815 (1991), Dan Richter’s Facing East from Indian Country (2001), and more recently contributed to the development of Elliott West’s The Last Indian War: The Nez Perce Story (2009). Clarissa Confer’s contribution, which follows dutifully along these lines, places Native Americans at the center, not only as warriors but as political actors that fought during the Civil War with the North or South when it suited their needs best. For the Cherokees this meant an internal struggle during the larger American Civil War. The larger Civil War was costly enough for Indian Territory. When coupled with the indigenous internal warfare between rival factions of Cherokees, it became a nightmarish warzone that led to great hardships. Confer shifts back and forth between internal and external influences to explain this situation. An interesting external dynamic that Sweet hints at and that Confer continues in her study is the influence of civilian authorities, who believed in the value of working with Native Americans, as compared to those commanders on the ground who were often frustrated by their behaviors on the battlefield. Commanders in the thick of the fight largely demurred to the use of Indians as they felt that their allies lacked the discipline to conduct reliably the Euro-American ways of war. What they failed to recognize, something that remained as much of an obstacle for them as it was for their forefathers, was why Native Americans maintained their independent cultural beliefs about how and when to engage the enemy, what practices to maintain when it came to warfare, and why they demonstrated a complete unwillingness or lack of understanding of what was required of them as members of the Union or Confederate armies; most notably and frustrating for commanders was the issue of leave, which Native Americans hardly ever filed for as they believed they were completely justified to come and go based on their personal needs and the needs of their society. Of course, for those that complained, there were also those that appreciated the value of their Native American allies as skilled warriors. As more time has passed, American Indian historians have worked to further “decolonize” the field of Eurocentric or Anglo-centric academic influences.6 At its apex, this means Native American scholars writing about Native American history. There is room, as evident by the chapters included within this volume by Mark van de Logt and Robert S. McPherson, though, for non-native authors to continue to contribute to the field’s growth. Suffice it to say, it is not enough to just use or reinterpret past sources to gain a Native American perspective, but to understand how and why Native Americans view the past as they do. Native American oral traditions play an important role in this. In van de Logt’s study of the Pawnee scouts, he goes beyond the work of Thomas W. Dunlay’s Wolves for the Blue Soldiers: Indian Scouts and Auxiliaries with the United States Army, 1860–1890 (1987), a work that, though it acknowledges the Native American perspective, relies more on evidence hailing from the American military side of the equation to explain how Native Americans viewed their service in spite of the late nineteenth century racism that they faced. A major difference between the two works is van de Logt’s contention that Pawnee cultural activity was more readily accepted by the military; and as a result, reinforced Pawnee 3

Geoffrey W. Jensen

beliefs in their heritage as opposed to Dunlay’s belief that military service aided in breaking down their culture in favor of assimilation with Americans. The interpretation of Indian oral traditions also plays a part in Robert S. McPherson’s chapter. Though others have written about the Navajo Code Talkers of World War II, McPherson takes readers on a unique spiritual and, in the minds of Native American warriors, practical journey that not only provides us with the backdrop for these men, but more importantly, how they prepared for and dealt with the horrors of war through the careful adherence to Navajo mythological tales and practices.7 It was the fathers and grandfathers of the Code Talkers who instilled in their sons and grandsons the necessity of always being prepared spiritually and physically for conflict, and how to heal themselves from warfare once the fighting had stopped. When it comes to the issue of racial involvement in the American military, African American service remains the most documented and explored. The use and, some authors might argue, abuse of black personnel in America’s wars is as old as the republic itself. As Jack D. Foner once observed, “The military establishment has been compelled to change, not through a sudden change of heart, but through a growing recognition that black manpower is a vital necessity to its survival.” Much like historian W.B. Hartgrove before him, Michael Lee Lanning notes the use of black soldiers throughout the colonial era including seventeenth century militia service, but only when the need for their service presented itself.8 Necessity was a powerful motivator, but so were greed and racial bigotry. Though African American militia men fought well in the key opening skirmishes of the Revolution, white colonial racial beliefs about the quality of blacks as soldiers along with economic concerns of slave owners in the southern colonies encouraged military officials, led by southern planter, General George Washington, to hastily remove African Americans from their fledgling fighting forces. This only changed after the successful recruiting efforts of the English, specifically Lord Dunmore’s proclamation, drove Washington and other colonials to reverse course.9 During his account of black service during the war, Lanning supports the earlier observation of historian Benjamin Quarles that blacks serving on either side of the war made limited gains. Where the two scholars differ is in Quarles’s belief that black involvement on the side of the colonials was symbolic; it was as he put it, tied “to a principle.” This is an example of Quarles’s “contributionism and messianism” and therefore his tendency to place blacks at the center of the nation’s story. This slight bias aside, Quarles, as an African American scholar writing during the Jim Crow-riddled twentieth century, succeeded in establishing a professional and objective tone about the contributions of African Americans during the Revolution that influenced Lanning and several others.10 During the writing of this volume, the sesquicentennial celebration of the Civil War is drawing to a close. A war waged over the peculiar institution of slavery has peaked the interests of many of military history’s finest scholars. This includes those who examined the roles played by African American citizens and slaves alike seeking to don Union blue out of an effort to achieve freedom for their race. Agency plays a critical role in all works involving racial minorities and their involvement in the armed forces. In the study of black soldiers of the Civil War, we find that it also clouds the objectivity of some of its earliest contributors. When George Washington Williams writes about the Civil War, a war he fought in, he does so in tones that embellish upon the role African American soldiers played in the conflict and how their activities justified their rightful place in American society as equals. But this is to be expected, historian John David Smith believes, as Williams, and for that matter other African American authors of the era, William Wells Brown and Joseph T. Wilson, struggled understandably with the issue of objectivity when it came to the importance of black personnel in the conflict. The lack of training as historians did not help these men with the issue, either. By the middle of the twentieth century, historians Benjamin Quarles’s The Negro in the Civil War (1953), Dudley Taylor Cornish’s The 4

Introduction

Sable Arm: Black Troops in the Union Army, 1861–1865 (1956), and James McPherson’s The Negro’s Civil War (1965) provided a much needed dose of professional objectivity to the subject; their works, along with others, formed the bedrock for the late twentieth and early twenty-first century works of William Dobak, Joseph T. Glatthaar, Noah Andre Trudeau, John David Smith, David Williams, Ian Michael Spurgeon, James G. Hollandsworth, Jr., and Chandra Manning, to name a very small few.11 In The Routledge Handbook of the History of Race and the American Military, authors explore many facets of the African American experience during the Civil War. Indeed, before blacks brandished arms in support of the Union, Brian Taylor contends a “politics of service” developed and existed within segments of their community that sought to set political and social demands in exchange for their service to the Unites States. What is interesting about this development is that it challenges the longstanding narrative that African Americans willingly went into battle out of a desire to prove themselves to their white counterparts. A narrative that largely began with Frederick Douglass’s famous cry in “Men of Color, to Arms!” Douglass understood that a Union victory during the Civil War would not be enough to assuage white racist views of blacks as potential societal equals. If African Americans served in a valiant fashion that aided in that victory, it might make a difference; at the very least, it would provide a strong argument for the granting of black equality. This idea of equality of service has been reaffirmed by various African American political actors from war to war. As of late, however, historians have demonstrated that a shift in this social ideology amongst the black populace occurred around the period of American involvement in the World Wars as returning African American veterans, frustrated by their treatment upon their return home, aided and abetted the rising Civil Rights Movement. But Taylor sees the development of resentment over the lack of social gains African Americans received for their past military service occurring before the Civil War, which means the idea of willingly serving the nation had always had its critics within the black community.12 Though some stewed over the lack of social compensation their race received from past military sacrifices, they still served. David Williams’s chapter, a spritely examination of black service during the war, demonstrates that black civilians, soon to be soldiers, took ownership of the war almost immediately. His description of Abraham Lincoln’s intentions behind the Emancipation Proclamation of 1863 resides somewhere in the middle of the historical debate revolving around “the Great Emancipator.”13 In a sense, Lincoln is a component in Williams’s play; the lead roles are played by African American citizens now emboldened not only by the call for freedom, though horribly limited, but also to arms. It was that call to arms that brought them to the battlefields of the Civil War. While Williams provides a concise overview of the fighting, Matthew Stith focuses on the guerilla warfare of the turbulent Trans-Mississippi West. Stith paints the image of a region hell-bent on the extreme during the Civil War where politics, racism, border disputes, and Native Americans, whites, and blacks collided in often bitter and terrible ways; and did so for reasons that were unique to each group and went beyond, though they encompassed aspects of it, the larger struggle between North and South. It is worth noting, Stith’s chapter introduces another factor in this struggle: the unforgiving geographical environment of the region that made waging and fleeing war, deadly. Moving from the geographical conditions of the war to the social implications of the environment of Reconstruction, Donald R. Shaffer and Paul Coker, respectively, explore African American soldiers’ complex role as peacekeepers and agitators of change during the reforming of the Union, while also establishing and protecting their race’s historical legacy in the Civil War. This newfound position of political agency came with its challenges. These men were typically stationed where they had finished fighting, which meant they were a great distance from their families and often in locations hostile to their presence. Nonetheless, Shaffer demonstrates that, 5

Geoffrey W. Jensen

despite the hardships, African American soldiers became a political voice for their race. Coker brings this story of emerging black political agency to Tennessee. In particular, he focuses on African American involvement in the Grand Army of the Republic (GAR), the predominate organization for Union war veterans. Though an integrated apparatus on paper, in practice it proved far less inclusive. Though they often had token roles, those roles and their membership in the organization proved important to the development of a historical memory of their race’s military activities during the Civil War. After America’s most costly war, African American soldiers returned to the nation’s battlefields. Most notably, they returned controversially to tame the American West. William Leckie, Arlen Fowler, William Dobak and Thomas Phillips, Frank Schubert, and Elizabeth Leonard have all contributed to our understanding of the creation and establishment of the Twenty-Fourth and Twenty-Fifth All-Black Infantry and the Ninth and Tenth All-Black Cavalries, and their use as enforcers of the American empire in the West and beyond; and doing so while struggling to maintain the equality afforded them by the Reconstruction amendments. In particular, Frank Schubert deconstructs the historical mythology surrounding the use of the term “Buffalo Soldiers” to describe African American soldiers on the frontier. It is his contention that present views have intruded on the past to shape not only the terminology used to describe these men, but perpetuate the idea that their story remains untold, when in fact, it has been a viable historical topic for quite some time.14 After the Buffalo Soldiers finished waging war on the American Frontier, Herschel Cashin and T.G. Steward, both Buffalo Soldiers themselves, first wrote about the units fighting America’s war for empire during the Spanish-American War. They were joined much later by historian Willard Gatewood, Jr., who wrote two excellent works on the subject. Recently, several authors have begun investigating the activity of the Buffalo Soldiers beyond their service in Cuba or the Philippines; in particular, their involvement in the formation of the Liberian Frontier Force. Both Tim Nevin, who concentrated on the “rank and file” members of the outfit, and Claude Clegg, who surveyed the role that African American personnel, most notably Charles Young, played in training the force, have written on the subject. Brian Shellum, whose multivolume biography of Charles Young remains the standard work on the subject, offers an analysis of the Liberian Frontier Force that differs from his predecessors. In a study dancing around the issues of race, international politics, and European colonialism during the early twentieth century, Shellum hones in on the American government’s unique use of black officers for such a task, an action that though it had its flaws prevented Liberia from being absorbed by rival European colonial powers, France and England.15 The World Wars of the twentieth century witnessed the return of African Americans to the battlefield. So too have scholars returned to the subject. The most prolific of those writing on this era include Stephen Harris, Adrien Lentz-Smith, Chad Williams, and Jeffrey Sammons and John Morrow, covering political agency, masculinity, sexuality, the long-running theme of acceptance through service, and the later questioning of that sacrifice to the cause and how it failed to achieve immediately the social gains African Americans desired, and whether it was worth it or not to serve appear throughout their works. For John Morrow, his survey of the experiences of African American personnel fighting in Europe, with special attention paid to the Harlem Rattlers of the 369th Infantry Regiment, highlights the triumphs and tragic disappointments that many black veterans encountered throughout the war and after.16 During the waging of the Second World War, W.E.B. DuBois wrote passionately in The Crisis on the behalf of African Americans seeking to take part in a war that they deemed racial in nature. As he wrote, the black community responded to him and other advocates of black military service through the establishment of a “Double V Campaign.” These efforts along with 6

Introduction

the notable contributions of A.P. Randolph, the head of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, and First Lady, Eleanor Roosevelt, forced the rigid white military establishment to include African Americans into the nation’s fighting forces. Noted authors, Bernard Nalty and Gail Buckley, have certainly contributed to our understanding of this story, but it is telling that the definitive work remains Ulysses Lee’s The Employment of Negro Troops, which is over sixty years old. Recognizing the amount of time needed to develop a comprehensive volume on the subject, Lee decided to limit his study solely to the discussion of the development of policies that allowed blacks to serve in the United States Army during the war. Though understandable, his decision left a terrific gap in the narrative; namely, when it came to the personal experiences of black personnel during the conflict. Phillip McGuire’s Taps for a Jim Crow Army (1983) helped fill that gap through the addition of letters from black soldiers writing throughout the conflict. Others have also attempted to fill the gap through unit studies; however, their focus predominately has been on the more famous outfits. Most are familiar with the famed Tuskegee Airmen, but what about the other units that were formed and equally achieved spectacular results? For example, what about the story of black tankers during the war? Several have written about the 761st AllBlack Tank Battalion, though more could be done; yet, what about the other battalions (758th and 784th)? Or for that matter, a scholarly study of the Red Ball Express? What could those stories tell us about the black experience during the war? The potential for new and interesting works certainly is there as displayed by recent monographs on the African American Marines at Montford Point, Emiel Owen’s autobiography of service as an artilleryman in World War II, Linda Hervieux’s recent volume on the 320th Barrage Balloon Battalion at Normandy, and Kim Phillips’s study of the growth of antiwar beliefs among returning soldiers after the war. Taking this into consideration, the time now seems right for a new comprehensive volume that supersedes Lee’s study; a work that should synthesize the recent historical trends revolving around black military service during World War II.17 In the years following the Second World War, historians interested in race have focused on a myriad of topics: the racial integration of the armed forces, the growing activism of African American veterans in the United States, and the continued struggles black personnel faced in the military during the Korean and Vietnam Wars.18 In my own contribution to the volume, I return to the moment when Harry S. Truman decided to issue Executive Order 9981. Often ignored, and when it is discussed, it is oversimplified as a politically calculated endeavor, Truman’s order to integrate the military revolved around political, Cold War, and personal rationales. I also suggest that his order unleashed a wave of reform within the military that proved his greatest domestic accomplishment. This is in stark contrast to recent studies that have undervalued the dedication of Truman and the impact his order had on African American civil rights. Robert Jefferson’s story of disabled veteran Vasco Hale’s efforts in Hartford, Connecticut, offers a glimpse at how returning African American war veterans aided their race’s struggle against Jim Crow; what makes the story of Hale so different is that he had suffered traumatic injuries during his training. Hale not only fought for the African American community, but for the handicapped as well. Though integration of the military had arrived by the time of the Vietnam War, racial problems persisted throughout the ranks. Wallace Terry, David Parks, James Westheider, Robert Schneller, and John Darrell Sherwood all have discussed the persisting issues of racism and racial conflict during the Vietnam War. In his study for this volume, Westheider takes readers back to the 1960s by examining the frustrations black personnel faced as members of a military environment that harbored systemic racism. Building off the work of Schneller and Sherwood, Isaac Hampton examines the American Navy’s effort to overcome its horrible reputation with the black community during the Cold War by increasing the amount of African American officers in its ranks through its ROTC programs at historically black colleges.19 7

Geoffrey W. Jensen

Republicanism, resistance, and rationales for service emerge in Richard Bruce Winders, Eric Muller, and Steven Rosales’s chapters. Winders investigates the influence of racial attitudes on American white soldiers waging war against a rival and, in their minds, lesser religious and political culture in Mexico.20 The issue for these men, according to Winders, runs deeper than skin color. Not surprisingly, he examines this issue through the lens of nineteenth century Manifest Destiny; but for him, the ideology spread far beyond simple racism; and instead, is best observed, he contends, as a matter of the Euro-American race using the concepts of religion and civic government as a justification for the supremacy of their race. In this sense, they viewed the war with Mexico a holy and civic cause. The forced relocation and imprisonment of Japanese citizens during the Second World War has attracted many to the subject. Several authors have written about the famed 442nd Regimental Combat Team, with the most recent scholarly study coming from James McCaffrey (2013). But not all that were interned picked up weapons in defense of the United States; those Japanese that did not were not helpless victims or traitors, but resisters protesting a nation that they felt had imprisoned them unfairly. The leading scholars of the theme of resistance include, Dorothy Swaine Thomas, Richard S. Nishimoto, Roger Daniels, Gary Okihiro, and Eric Muller. Their contributions have fostered the creation of a rich historiographical narrative. For instance, Okihiro compared Japanese resistance to that of African slaves during the era of European colonialism. By doing so, he discovered that those that resisted did so for cultural and religious rationales, and importantly did so as a matter of human dignity. In his own works, including his contribution to this volume, Eric Muller has built on his predecessors’ works to highlight the various themes of resistance and the reactions to it. He is interested, similar to Okihiro, in the way that resistance emerged and how resisters operated at the various internment facilities. As a result of their actions, they faced ridicule from their own race. Indeed, resisters not only faced punishment from the federal government of the United States for their actions, but were also shunned by their own for their unwillingness to fight. Leading the charge inside the camps against the resisters was the Japanese American Citizens League (JACL), a group supportive of serving in World War II, and thus proud of the war record of the 442nd, as a gesture of good faith toward those that doubted their loyalty to the United States. Meanwhile, when punishment came from the federal court system, Muller demonstrates that it lacked consistency and varied over time. Though it took many years, he notes, those in the Japanese American community that once shunned the stance of the resisters came to recognize their contribution to the greater Japanese American community. In this sense, for some, they became heroes.21 In the final chapter, Steven Rosales provides an overview of the rationales behind forty years’ worth of Mexican American military service. As with other racial minority groups, Latinos believed that a “social contract” came with their service. The payoff then for fighting and waging America’s war, they felt, was equality. Supporting this belief was the intertwined concepts of machismo masculinity and duty to one’s country (here he emphasizes the transferring of the idea of “la patria” from Mexico to the United States amongst the Mexican American youth). Though rooted firmly in Latino American military history, Rosales’s work incorporates other important aspects of Latino historiography as well. These include border history, cultural studies, and gender discussion. His synthesis of these views into his essay provides a launching point for future studies, but also provides a prime example of how American military history can be used as a looking glass on the issue of race.22

Conclusion Since our profession’s steady embrace of the New Social History, we have developed not only new perspectives and a new field (War and Society), but have broadened our appeal to various historians of other disciplines. It is my belief that as we continue to expand and grow within this 8

Introduction

development, we will encourage scholars to tackle subjects in new and exciting ways. With a bit of imagination and good luck, we can continue to contribute to our understanding of American society as a whole, but importantly and returning to Roosevelt’s message years ago, we can create a narrative that no longer stands apart from a larger story of the republic, but one that engulfs and transcends it.

Notes 1 My historiographical examination on the subject of the study of race in the American military was inspired by Edward Coffman’s essay, “The New American Military History,” Military Affairs: The Journal of Military History 94 (January 1984): 1–5; “Who Shall Write Our Military History?,” Proceedings of a Conference on the Military History of the United States at the Twenty-Eighth Annual Meeting of the American Historical Association, Boston, MA, December 28, 1912 (Washington, DC: The United States Infantry Association, 1913), 31, 36. 2 I especially think of H.R. McMaster, Dereliction of Duty: Lyndon Johnson, Robert McNamara, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the Lies That Led to Vietnam (New York: Harper Collins, 1997); Gregory Daddis, Westmoreland’s War and Reassessing American Strategy in Vietnam (New York: Oxford University Press, 2014) and No Sure Victory: Measuring U.S. Army Effectiveness and Progress in the Vietnam War (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011); Gian Gentile, Wrong Turn: America’s Deadly Embrace of Counter-Insurgency (New York: The New Press, 2013). 3 Robert M. Citino, “Military Histories Old and New: A Reintroduction,” American Historical Review 112 (October 2007): 1070–1090. 4 Morris J. MacGregor, Jr., Integration of the Armed Forces, 1940–1965 (Washington, DC: Center of Military History, United States Army, 1981), 100. 5 Wayne Lee, “Early American Ways of War: A New Reconnaissance, 1600–1815,” The Historical Journal 44, No. 1 (March 2001): 269–289. For those new to the subject of cultural misunderstanding with Native Americans, a good place, though not the only one, to begin is Ian K. Steele’s study of “the massacre” at Fort William Henry: Ian K. Steele, Betrayals: Fort William Henry & the “Massacre” (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993). 6 Several historians have shaped the decolonizing movement of the field. They include Susan Miller and James Riding In, eds., Native Historians Write Back: Decolonizing American Indian History (Lubbock: Texas Tech University Press, 2011); Devon Mihesuah, So You Want to Write About American Indians? A Guide for Scholars, Students and Writers (Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press, 2005); Devon Mihesuah, ed., Natives and Academics: Researching and Writing About American Indians (Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press, 1998); Vine Deloria, Jr., “Research, Redskins, and Reality,” American Indian Quarterly 15, No. 4 (Autumn, 1991): 457–468. 7 For more on those scholars, see Chapter 14, endnote #2, in this volume. 8 In regards to black military service during the Colonial era, Hartgrove hints at the possibility that some black freemen “exercised political rights, among which was that of bearing arms.” This is an interesting issue that has received rather little attention. Specifically, the political freedom of free black service in Colonial militias. See W.B. Hartgrove, “The Negro Soldier in the American Revolution,” The Journal of Negro History 1, No. 2 (April 1916): 110–131. 9 Jack D. Fonner, Blacks and the Military in American History (New York: Praeger, 1974), 261. 10 Benjamin Quarles, The Negro in the American Revolution (New York: Norton, 1973), vii, 199–200. Quarles’s work remains the definitive account of African American soldiers, whether free or slave, during the American Revolution; Wilson J. Moses and Benjamin Quarles, “African American Historiography and the Works of Benjamin Quarles,” The History Teacher 32, No. 1 (November 1998): 77–88. 11 Oscar R. Williams III and Hayward “Woody” Farmer, “African Americans and the American Civil War” in A Companion to African American History, ed. Alton Hornsby, Jr. (Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing, 2005): 250–270, remains a useful beginning on the subject of African American service during the Civil War; John David Smith, introduction to A History of the Negro Troops in the War of the Rebellion: 1861–1865, by George Washington Williams (New York: Fordham University Press, 2012), xxix, xxxi– xxxii; Joseph T. Wilson, The Black Phalanx: A History of the Negro Soldiers of the United States in the Wars of 1775–1812, 1861–’65 (Hartford, CT: American Publishing Company, 1888); William Wells Brown, The Negro in the American Rebellion: His Heroism and His Fidelity (Boston: Lee & Shepard, 1887); William A. Dobak, Freedom by the Sword: The U.S. Colored Troops, 1862–1867 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Army

9

Geoffrey W. Jensen

12 13

14

15

16

17

Center of Military History, 2011); Joseph T. Glatthaar, Forged in Battle: The Civil War Alliance of Black Soldiers and White Officers (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1990); Noah Andre Trudeau, Like Men of War: Black Troops in the Civil War (Boston: Little Brown, 1998); John David Smith, Lincoln and the U.S. Colored Troops (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 2013) and Black Soldiers in Blue: African American Troops in the Civil War Era (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2004); David Williams, I Freed Myself: African American Self-Emancipation in the Civil War Era (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2014); James G. Hollandsworth Jr., The Louisiana Native Guards: The Black Military Experience During the Civil War (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1998); Chandra Manning, What This Cruel War Was Over: Soldiers, Slavery, and the Civil War (New York: Knopf, 2007). Frederick Douglass, “MEN OF COLOR, TO ARMS!” Broadside, Rochester, March 21, 1863. For a sampling of the discussion revolving around the issue of Lincoln and slavery, see Eric Foner, The Fiery Trial: Abraham Lincoln and American Slavery (New York: W.W. Norton, 2010); James McPherson, Tried by War: Abraham Lincoln as Commander in Chief (New York: Penguin, 2008); Paul D. Escott, What Shall We Do With the Negro?: Lincoln, White Racism, and Civil War America (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2009). William H. Leckie with Shirley A. Leckie, The Buffalo Soldiers: A Narrative of the Black Cavalry in the West, Revised Edition (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2003); Arlen Fowler, The Black Infantry in the West, 1869–1891 (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1996); William Dobak and Thomas Phillips, The Black Regulars, 1866–1898 (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2001); Frank Schubert, Black Valor: Buffalo Soldiers and the Medal of Honor, 1870–1898 (Wilmington, DE: Scholarly Resources, Inc., 1997), and Voices of the Buffalo Soldier: Records, Reports, and Recollections of Military Life and Service in the West (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2009). Herschel V. Cashin, Under Fire With the Tenth U.S. Cavalry (London, New York, and Chicago: F. Tennyson Neely, 1899); T.G. Steward, Buffalo Soldiers: The Colored Regulars in the United States Army (Philadelphia: A.M.E. Book Concern, 1904); Willard Gatewood, Black Americans and the White Man’s Burden: 1898–1903 (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1975) and “Smoked Yankees” and the Struggle for Empire: Letters from Negro Soldiers, 1898–1902 (Fayetteville: University of Arkansas Press, 1987); Brian Shellum, Black Cadet in a White Bastion: Charles Young at West Point (Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press, 2006) and Black Officer in a Buffalo Soldier Regiment: The Military Career of Charles Young (Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press, 2010); Tim Nevin, “The Uncontrollable Force: A Brief History of the Liberian Frontier Force, 1908–1944,” The International Journal of African Historical Studies 44, No. 2 (2011): 275–297; Claude Clegg, “ ‘A Splendid Type of Colored American’: Charles Young and the Reorganization of the Liberian Frontier Force,” The International Journal of African Historical Studies 29, No. 1 (1996): 47–70. Stephen Harris, Harlem’s Hell Fighters: The African American 369th Infantry in World War I (Washington DC: Brassey’s, 2003); Adrien Lentz-Smith, Freedom Struggles: African Americans and World War I (New York: Harvard University Press, 2011); Chad Williams, Torchbearers of Democracy: African American Soldiers in the World War I Era (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2010). For an introduction to historiography of African American involvement during World War II see Hayward “Woody” Farmer, “The Black Soldier in Two World Wars” in A Companion to African American History, ed. Alton Hornsby, Jr. (Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing, 2005): 349–363; Bernard C. Nalty, Strength for the Fight: A History of Black Americans in the Military (New York: Free Press, 1986); Gail Buckley, American Patriots: The Story of Blacks in the Military From the Revolution to Desert Storm (New York: Random House, 2001); Ulysses Lee, The Employment of Negro Troops (Honolulu, Hawaii: The University Press of the Pacific, 2004), ix; Several works have been written on the Airmen, for example see Charles Francis, The Tuskegee Airmen (Boston: Bruce Humphries, 1955); John Holway, Red Tails, Black Wings (Las Cruces, NM: Yucca Tree Press, 1997); Lynn Homan and Thomas Reilly, Black Knights: The Story of the Tuskegee Airman (Gretna, LA: Pelican, 2001); Robert Jakeman, The Divided Skies: Establishing Segregated Flight Training at Tuskegee, Alabama, 1934–1942 (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1992); James McGovern, Black Eagle: General Daniel “Chappie” James, Jr. (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1985); J. Todd Moye, Freedom Flyers: The Tuskegee Airmen of World War II (New York: Oxford University Press, 2010); for studies on the 761st, the most prevalent are Trezzvant Anderson, Come Out Fighting: The Epic Tale of the 761st Tank Battalion, 1942–1945 (Salzburg, Austria: Salzburger Druckerei Und Verlag, 1945); Charles Sasser, Patton’s Panthers (New York: Pocket Books, 2004); Joe Wilson, Jr., The 761st “Black Panther” Tank Battalion in World War II (Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 1999); David J. Williams, Hit Hard (New York: Bantam, 1983) and Eleanor Roosevelt’s Niggers (Davenport, FL: Neptune Books, 1976); Gina M. Dinicolo, The Black Panthers: A Story of Race, War, and Courage: The 761st Tank Battalion in World War II

10

Introduction

18

19

20

21

22

(Yardley, Pennsylvania: Westholme, 2014); Melton McLaurin, The Marines of Montford Point: America’s First Black Marines (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2007); Emile Owens, Blood on German Snow: An African Artillery Man in World War II and Beyond (College Station: Texas A&M Press, 2006); Linda Hervieux, Forgottten: The Untold Story of D-Day’s Black Heroes, at Home and at War (New York: Harper, 2015); Kimberly Phillips’s WAR! What Is It Good For? (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2012); a special mention of the work of John Hope Franklin must be made. Though not a military historian by trade, Franklin’s From Slavery to Freedom: A History of African Americans (New York: Alfred A. Knopf Publishing Company, 1947) remains the definitive textbook on the African American experience; it should also be noted that Freedom from Slavery does a more than adequate job discussing black military service as well. This, of course, includes their service in the Second World War. An excellent examination of African American soldiers during the Korean War is William T. Bowers, William M. Hammond, and George L. MacGarrigle, Black Soldier, White Army: The 24th Infantry Regiment in Korea (Washington, DC: Center of Military History, United States Army, 1996). On the integration of the armed forces, the standard remains Morris J. MacGregor, Jr., Integration of the Armed Forces, 1940–1965 (Washington, DC: Center of Military History, United States Army, 1981); but certainly consult: Lee Nichols, Breakthrough on the Color Front (New York: Random House, 1954); Richard M. Dalfiume, Desegregation of the U.S. Armed Forces: Fighting on Two Fronts: 1939–1953 (Columbia, Missouri: University of Missouri Press, 1975); Sherie Mershon and Steven Schlossman, Foxholes & Color Lines: Desegregating the U.S. Armed Forces (Baltimore and London: The John Hopkins University Press, 1998); David Parks, G.I. Diary (Washington, DC: Howard University Press, 1984); James Westheider, The African American Experience in Vietnam: Brothers in Arms (New York: Rowman & Littlefield, 2008) and Fighting on Two Fronts: African Americans and the Vietnam War (New York: New York University Press, 1997); John Darrell Sherwood, Black Sailor, White Navy: Racial Unrest in the Fleet During the Vietnam War Era (New York: New York University Press, 2007); Robert Schneller, Jr., Blue & Gold and Black: Racial Integration of the U.S. Naval Academy (College Station: Texas A&M Press, 2008). For his larger treatment on the subject of American involvement in the Mexican War, see Richard Bruce Winders, Mr. Polk’s Army: The American Military Experience in the Mexican War (College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 1997). James M. McCaffrey, Going for Broke: Japanese American Soldiers in the War Against Nazi Germany (Norm: University of Oklahoma Press, 2013); Dorothy Swaine Thomas and Richard S. Nishimoto, The Spoilage (Berkley: University of California Press, 1946); Roger Daniels, Concentration Camps: North America, Japanese in the United States and Canada During World War II (Malabar, FL: Robert E. Krieger Publishing, 1981); Richard S. Nishimoto, Inside an American Concentration Camp: Japanese American Resistance at Poston, Arizona, edited by Lane Ryo Hirabayshi (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1995); Gary Y. Okihiro, The Columbia Guide to Asian American History (New York: Columbia University Press, 2001), 171–172; Eric L. Muller, Free to Die for Their Country: The Story of the Japanese American Draft Resisters in World War II (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2001); and American Inquisition: The Hunt for Japanese American Disloyalty in World War II (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2008). Antonio Rios-Bustmante, “A General Survey of Chicano(a) Historiography,” Occasional Paper No. 25 (January 2000), Juliam Samora Research Institute, Michigan State University. This paper, though now a bit dated, provides a sound beginning for those seeking to understand the developments in the study of Chicano history over the years. Also see Lea Ybarra, Vietnam Veteranos: Chicanos Recall the War (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2004); Maggie Rivas-Rodriguez, ed., Mexican Americans & World War II (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2005); Maria Cristina Garcia, Seeking Refuge: Central American Migration to Mexico, the United States, and Canada (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2006); Luis Alvarez, The Power of the Zoot: Youth Culture and Resistance During World War II (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2008); Kelly Lytle Hernandez, Migra!: A History of the U.S. Border Patrol (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2010); Matt Garcia, From the Jaws of Victory: The Triumph and Tragedy of Cesar Chavez and the Farm Worker Movement (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2012); Mary E. Odem and Elaine Lucy, eds., Latino Immigrants and the Transformation of the U.S. South (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2009); George Mariscal, Aztlan and Vietnam: Chicano and Chicana Experiences of the War (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999); Lorena Oropeza, Raza Si! Guerra No!: Chicano Protest and Patriotism During the Vietnam War Era (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005); Lillia Fernandez, Brown in the Windy City: Mexicans and Puerto Ricans in Chicago (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2014).

11

This page intentionally left blank

PART I

Early Encounters From the Colonial Era to the Mexican-American War

This page intentionally left blank

1 “SO NECESSARY THAT WE COULD NOT HOLD THE COUNTRY WITHOUT THEM” Indian and Colonial Military Cooperation in the Colonial Southeast Julie Anne Sweet James Oglethorpe had a problem. He knew that it was only a matter of time before the Spanish based in St. Augustine, Florida, would advance northward into his Georgia colony, so he called for reinforcements to secure what he believed was lawfully British territory. The British government, however, was hesitant to commit regular forces on the Georgia-Florida border because it did not want to provoke the Spanish nor was it convinced that Georgia, which had failed to live up to expectations, was worth saving. The defense of the colony, as a result, lay with its militia. To supplement this force, Oglethorpe sought the assistance of local Indian warriors who knew the terrain and would serve as excellent scouts and soldiers. He had already established a good reputation with the Creeks, and he also entertained Cherokee and Chickasaw visitors in Augusta and Savannah. He promised them bounty and glory if they agreed to join his cause, and although he never commanded more than a few hundred warriors at any one time, those fearsome fighters proved to be invaluable in the years to come. Without their help, the militia may not have held onto British claims to Georgia. The Indians therefore played a crucial role in the colonial wars in the Southeast, and from them, the militia learned how to fight in this challenging yet critical location. Not until the late seventeenth century did the British Empire turn its attention to the southeastern region of the North American continent, and it did so to improve connections with its West Indian possessions and, more importantly, to defend its mainland colonies against the Spanish in Florida and the French in Louisiana. While the founding of Carolina (1670) and Georgia (1733) had multiple purposes, defense played a major role for both of them, most especially the latter colony. Predictably, the Spanish objected to these British outposts, and the two empires clashed intermittently throughout the early eighteenth century and mounted more serious expeditions in the early 1740s. Meanwhile, the French infiltrated the region from the west and made overtures to local Indians to abandon their British allies and establish relations with them instead. They made only moderate inroads with the Indians, but they succeeded in alarming the British who expressed concern and prepared for war as the French steadily expanded their range of talks and trade into the outskirts of British territory. Both of these threats produced sporadic, yet persistent, skirmishing whether or not there had been an official declaration of war and required the British to be constantly at the ready to defend its colonies (see Map 1.1).1 15

Source: Courtesy of the Hargrett Rare Book and Manuscript Library, University of Georgia.

Map 1.1 “A New Map of Georgia, with Part of Carolina, Florida and Louisiana. Drawn from Original Draughts, Assisted by the Most Approved Maps and Charts. Collected by Eman: Bowne, Geographer to His Majesty (1748).”

Indian and Colonial Military Cooperation

Unable to spare the regular troops needed to protect its southeastern land claims, the British Empire had to rely upon the militia to do the job for them. The Crown expected colonists between the ages of sixteen and sixty to serve in the militia and maintain their vigilance with regular meetings and drills as well as provide their own firearms. These men acted as the first line of defense against any sort of invasion or uprising and were prepared to react to any threat at a moment’s notice. Most historians and scholars rightfully agree that the militia represents the early roots of the modern United States Army because of its emphasis on voluntary service, its readiness to serve and defend the homeland, and its unique tactics when compared with those of the British army. Training the militia to operate in the North American wilderness presented distinct challenges. The thick forests and uneven terrain made large-scale maneuvers almost impossible. Frequent drills proved difficult to schedule and enforce as colonists spread out across the countryside away from town centers and put more emphasis on personal and family needs than imperial defense. Even when men gathered for practice, few knew what they were doing or how to prepare for battle. Overseas British administrators appointed commanding officers, some more qualified than others, and expected them to direct any formal operations in the colonies, but they often lacked familiarity with this type of setting to be of much use. Consequently, rather than becoming indoctrinated with European military traditions, the militia learned how to fight from imitating the tactics of their Indian allies and neighbors. While many remained skeptical of trusting the Indians because of prejudices against their stealthy and so-called “savage” way of war, in actuality, it made perfect sense to employ these skilled warriors who knew the lay of the land. Their service depended on the commanding officer; those who understood and valued Indian tactics and were willing to work with the warriors and treat them with respect enjoyed much more success than those who looked upon them only with contempt and distaste. For example, before Oglethorpe mounted his offensive against Spanish St. Augustine in 1740, William Bull, lieutenant governor of South Carolina, warned him that “the . . . Indians are able and will do good Service on this Occasion if they are well used, encouraged and not disgusted by any Restraint from what they apprehend they have a Right to enjoy whilst they are in an Enemy’s Country.”2 Oglethorpe did not give his Indian auxiliaries complete free rein over the countryside, but he did learn to tolerate their unconventional activities and profited from their assistance. On the other hand, John Reynolds, the first royal governor of Georgia, refused to meet with various Indian headmen at Augusta in November 1755 when they failed to appear at the appointed time and subsequently lost the friendship of several powerful Creek leaders who responded by opening up negotiations with the French. Such disrespect for Indian allies and disregard for the unstable geopolitical situation in the Southeast jeopardized the safety of all British colonists and contributed to Reynolds’s recall one year later.3 Thus, astute commanders recognized and appreciated their Indian allies and benefitted accordingly, while irresponsible ones who ignored and insulted them suffered the consequences. In the colonial Southeast, the British had many Indian nations to deal with, and they were careful not to offend anyone so that the nations would not join their enemies against them. The two largest confederacies in the region were the Creeks and the Cherokee. Both had large populations with hundreds of warriors available to participate in military operations, but convincing them to do so took skillful diplomacy. Concentrated along the tributaries of the Chattahoochee and Alabama Rivers, the Creek confederacy had expertly played the three European empires off of each other for decades in order to obtain the best deals. Though many towns favored the British out of Carolina and Georgia, some maintained their neutrality or changed their alliances depending on the immediate circumstances.4 Located in the southern Appalachian Mountains and its piedmont, the Cherokee had developed strong commercial ties with the British of 17

Julie Anne Sweet

Virginia and Carolina but became dissatisfied with their unfair treatment over time. Although removed from the immediate vicinity of British-Spanish-French intrigue, they nonetheless monitored the situation closely so that they could use it to their advantage.5 Occasionally, Chickasaw and Choctaw warriors ventured east to join the war effort to enhance their status, but these two nations were too far away from the main theater of operations to justify major British diplomatic efforts, though any additional support was welcome. The British made sure to negotiate with the Creeks and Cherokee regularly, however, to maintain peaceful relations and to recruit the manpower necessary for their success. Despite the potential volume of Indian warriors that could join the fighting, only a few hundred took part. Determining the exact number of Indian auxiliaries in the field at any time is impossible since they were not included in traditional correspondence like roll calls or combat reports. Most historians agree that several hundred participated but not all at the same time or in more than one engagement. Since the major Indian confederacies of the colonial Southeast prided themselves on their mostly neutral stance, they were reluctant to abandon that position until it was absolutely necessary. Some warriors struck out on their own, though, to collect the rewards that participation in battle offered. In the end, quality trumped quantity; their many and diverse contributions to the war effort were much more important and had a more lasting impact than the number of warriors who partook in the conflicts.6 One of the most important advantages that Indian warriors offered was knowledge of the local terrain. This skill provided an invaluable benefit in an age of highly inaccurate maps that were more artistic than actual. The majority of operations occurred along the southeastern seaboard which featured countless waterways, most of which were swamps or marshes and changed with the tides and seasons. Warriors knew how to avoid these features as well as how to use them for transportation and protection. Further inland, they could find their way through the dense forests that confounded European troops. To the Indians, the Southeast was a series of crisscrossed paths that not only connected towns and allowed for trade, but also marked, in an amorphous, yet uniquely recognizable fashion, the distinct hunting grounds for each nation.7 To the Europeans, it was just a thick maze of trees that all looked the same. By utilizing the Indians’ knowledge of the local terrain, the British were able to gain the intelligence necessary to plan their operations accordingly and to employ their warriors to guide them through this challenging topography. They could also use the lay of the land to their advantage, choosing places to engage the enemy based on positive or negative features on the landscape. For example, when the Spanish attacked St. Simon’s Island in July 1742, Oglethorpe’s Indian allies helped repel the invaders by driving them into the many marshes that covered the island.8 The militia, who fought alongside these warriors, learned from firsthand experience the importance of picking the right location and exploiting its physical attributes to their benefit. Native American familiarity with the land thus gave their British allies a distinct edge over anyone who attempted to infiltrate British claims in the Southeast and taught the militia valuable lessons. The warrior ethos of Native American life, steeped in a culture that celebrated their prowess as hunters, also made them an attractive ally for the British. As part of their upbringing, young boys learned to track animals with stealth and to move across the countryside quietly so as not to disturb any wildlife. They practiced their skills by participating in hunting parties but also by engaging in games and contests with other boys. Over time, they aspired to make their own kills with singular and minimal effort as a demonstration of their courage and abilities. The more risky the confrontation with a wild animal, the more glory the hunter acquired. Hunters would then apply these practical skills to battle. They faced the enemy in close combat and sought to humiliate him in order to insult his bravery. They only killed when necessary, and they took trophies, usually scalps, from the dead as proof of their victory. After their return from hunting or 18

Indian and Colonial Military Cooperation

battle, their family and town celebrated their success and awarded them with symbols or tokens of their triumph. Their accomplished techniques as well as their number of kills demonstrated their expertise as a warrior; both quality and quantity mattered.9 While militiamen never fully appreciated or accepted all aspects and nuances of the warrior culture, they did pick up their hunting skills. Colonists needed to learn how to hunt in order to survive on the frontier, and they were often unprepared to face the wilderness and all its new challenges. Friendly Indians taught the basic techniques necessary to bring down game effectively including tracking, trapping, and shooting and showed colonists how to use the forest and all its resources to their advantage. Much like the Indians, militiamen would apply these special abilities to the battlefield, but few remembered that they had learned those first lessons from their Native American allies. Native hunting skills also aided the British cause in several direct ways. First and foremost, Indians served as excellent scouts. When allowed to roam the countryside, they could easily locate the enemy’s position, largely because they recognized subtle changes in the landscape that Europeans failed to notice, and report it back to the commanding officer without alerting the enemy. Indeed, their quiet movements and careful tread made them difficult to hear, see, or trace as they silently patrolled the region for intruders.10 If permitted, Native Americans could make a quick strike against a small force. Because of their smooth and fast pace, they could ambush an unsuspecting party even if they were outnumbered. Edward Kimber observed that “When they make an Incursion into an Enemy’s Country, they decline the open Roads and Paths, and only scout along the Defiles and Woods, ready to pop on any Prey that shall appear in the open Country; whom they attack with terrible and mournful Cries, that astonish even more than their Arms.”11 Sometimes, merely creating a raucous diversion or making loud and frightening noises worked to terrorize anyone within the immediate vicinity and dissuade them from attacking.12 They could also pursue retreating forces faster than regular troops and capture or kill stragglers.13 Some officers used their Indian allies as an advanced guard or “flying party” as one historian calls them. Because they moved with stealth and speed, they could serve as the first frontal assault on an unsuspecting garrison to soften enemy resistance before the rest of the British troops and colonial militia would arrive to finish the job. This tactic worked well on smaller outposts in remote areas such as the Spanish missions in Apalachee in 1704 but failed against larger forts that required more forces to overtake.14 Nevertheless, these little victories depleted the morale and manpower of the enemy and slowly chipped away at their hold in the Southeast. All these techniques earned the Indians a formidable reputation that struck fear into soldiers and citizens alike, and few people wanted to venture far from a protected location for fear of falling prey to these hidden warriors. One ranger traveling with Oglethorpe and his mixed forces proudly declared, “The English and Indians so harassed the Spaniards that they were afraid to appear without the Walls of St. Augustine.”15 The mere possibility of ambush made everyone leery of straying too far from their home base and prevented any further advances into the countryside.16 These small and swift attacks not only promoted the Indians’ reputation as fierce and frightful foes but also provided excellent examples of the use of guerilla warfare to the militia who would implement these same tactics in future combat. On occasion, Native Americans fought side by side with the militia to strike an enemy stronghold, repel an enemy assault, or frustrate an enemy retreat. When the Spanish launched an invasion of St. Simon’s Island in July 1742, the Indians played a vital role in preventing them from gaining a foothold there. Once the Spanish forces had landed and begun their march toward Fort Frederica, Oglethorpe attacked with his mixed troops of Indians, Scottish Highlanders, and colonial militia while the enemy was still tangled in the woods and before they could get organized 19

Julie Anne Sweet

and mount a frontal offensive on the fort.17 This type of fighting suited Indian warriors and contributed greatly to the British victory and the Spanish withdrawal, but this particular engagement also serves as an excellent example of Native Americans working with British forces and using their skills to their best advantage. It also gave the militia experience in the field and allowed them to learn these techniques for later application. Contrary to popular belief, Indians did not always abandon their British allies after a battle; instead, they continued to lend assistance as necessary. When James Moore returned from his failed attempt to take Spanish St. Augustine in 1702, his warriors stayed with the main force, provided protection from possible ambush, and exhibited “a great deal of Bravery and Unconcern.” When the militia worried about their slow pace and feared a Spanish surprise attack, one warrior reassured them that “I will not stir till I have seen all my Men before me,” essentially promising that no man would be left behind.18 The Indians’ courage and loyalty inspired the soldiers to keep going and taught them dedication and camaraderie. Some officers allowed their Native American auxiliaries to ravage the countryside in order to deprive their enemy of valuable supplies, to weaken their defenses, and to prevent possible invasions from overland. Oglethorpe understood this advantage, and in his plans to invade Spanish Florida, he recommended that “the best expedient . . . is to strike first and . . . beat [the Spanish] out of the field and destroy their plantations and out-settlements (in which the Indians who are very faithful can assist us).”19 They performed their task admirably, and as the British troops marched into Florida, they “saw the melancholy Spots the Indians had set Fire to, which, in some Places, had spread near a Mile, destroying all before it, and leaving whole Forests in Ruin.”20 In the end, Oglethorpe had to restrain his warriors from doing too much damage because their actions reflected back on him as their commanding officer and reinforced stereotypes and prejudices against their ways of war, but he did send them out on specific missions knowing that they could successfully carry them out.21 As part of an ambush or a scouting mission, Indians could take captives. This practice was standard operating procedure for all Native Americans across the continent. Warriors seized other warriors as a way to prove their courage because they were taking their prisoner alive rather than killing him. After capture, they brought their hostage back to their town where he was either tortured and killed or adopted. Torture was usually a slow and painful ordeal because it gave the victim the opportunity to demonstrate his own bravery under duress and to die with honor. Adoption allowed a community to replenish their dwindling population by bringing in new warriors to replace those lost in battle.22 For the British, this tradition of taking captives gave them access to individuals who could provide vital information about enemy strength, numbers, location, plans, and more. In May 1741, as the British prepared for a new campaign against the Spanish, Oglethorpe reported that a party of Creek Indians had captured Lieutenant Don Romualda Ruiz del Moral, nephew of the governor, who told of the arrival of an additional eight hundred men to defend St. Augustine, and this news convinced Oglethrope not to undertake another expedition over land that year but to rely instead upon the British navy to threaten the garrison while patrolling the region and protecting British claims in the West Indies.23 Countless times, Indians seized prisoners as they roamed the countryside, which depleted the enemy’s forces and made them fearful of sending out scouts, thus depriving them of the opportunity to gather information and supplies from the surrounding area and helping the English cause.24 On other occasions, Native Americans used their hunting prowess to provide game for their allies to eat. Indians grew up in a culture that relied on hunting not just for food but for all necessities like clothing and shelter. They put all parts of the animal to use and wasted nothing. Their training as hunters meant that they could bring provisions to British forces in the field. For instance, Mark Carr, who travelled with a scouting expedition in December 1739, praised 20

Indian and Colonial Military Cooperation

them stating, “The Indians were of great use here, for they were not only a terror to the Spanish . . ., but they inspected the inland country and brought us plenty of fresh beef . . . which refreshed the men much.”25 They obtained other practical materials as well, usually those stolen from or abandoned by enemy forces. Horses were especially useful as pack animals to transport supplies, and Indians collected them along with other items, thus aiding their allies and denying their enemies these valuable resources.26 Over time, the militia picked up these hunting skills as well. Since they were an irregular and temporary force, they had to furnish their own provisions, and taking them from the enemy was the most effective and efficient way to do so while also depriving them of those same items. All of the advantages that Indian warriors provided depended on the willingness of the commanding officer to make use of them, though. Those who understood and appreciated the special assistance that their Native American auxiliaries could offer used them to discover, soften, capture, and defeat enemy forces, and a few even took time to celebrate these activities in their after-action reports. One observer noted that when the Indians came across a small party in retreat and received permission to pursue, “they stripped and run like hounds in full cry, and, to do them justice, they are fine brave fellows.”27 Another participant also praised their Indian allies for their support mentioning that during “the late Invasion when the Spaniards advanced within a Mile of Frederica[,] . . . they signalized their Bravery and the Love they bore to the English even facing Danger itself by taking and killing every Spaniard they Came near, besides many other Fatigues and Dangers they underwent.”28 Oglethorpe too commended their efforts proclaiming on two different occasions that “the Indians behaved with great bravery” and that “The Indians, particularly the Creeks, showed the utmost intrepidity and were of the greatest service,” and he believed that their assistance was “so necessary that we could not hold the country without them.”29 Not everyone had positive experiences when it came to working with the Indians, however. All British forces—officers, regulars, and militia—distrusted Native Americans and worried that they would slaughter the enemy indiscriminately and do more harm than good. They believed the stereotypes of Indians as bloodthirsty savages who brutalized their opponent for sheer pleasure. Warriors certainly took trophies and tortured prisoners, but did so for specific cultural reasons.30 Many officers did not understand or appreciate these traditions and refused to see them as what they were, namely essential components of the warrior culture. For example, after successfully taking the enemy’s position and killing its defenders, some Chickasaw warriors decided to share their prize of the severed head of a Spanish Indian with Oglethorpe, but instead of graciously accepting the trophy and praising the warriors’ prowess, he denounced them and “called them barbarous Dogs, and with much Anger bid them be gone.”31 Even open-minded Oglethorpe had to draw the line of common decency somewhere. Europeans saw these customs as barbaric, whereas Native Americans accepted them as routine and even required by their society.32 Indian warriors also refused to take commands like ordinary soldiers, making them look insubordinate and unreliable. British officers trained in European military traditions expected unquestioned loyalty and obedience, whereas Indian warriors preferred to operate independently. If given a task like scouting or raiding, they performed admirably, but if expected to march with regular troops, engage the enemy in open-field combat, participate in a traditional siege, or provide garrison support, Indians would grumble, complain, and even refuse to obey. When Oglethorpe’s swift strike at St. Augustine turned into a conventional siege, his Indian allies would not cooperate, informing him on no uncertain terms how ridiculous this approach was and ultimately abandoning him. They announced that they were “tired with constant Fatigue, Day and Night, in ranging near three Weeks only backward and forward and disheartened that there was no Prospect of attacking Augustine.”33 Upon seeing the fort, several warriors observed that “If the General sent them few Men with their little Guns to fight against so many Men, and such a 21

Julie Anne Sweet

strong Fort, . . . They looked like something put into a great Mouth, that was to be devoured as soon as the Mouth was shut.”34 When the siege dragged into the summer, they complained that they “were tired with the Heats and bad Weather and resolved to return Home.”35 Oglethorpe discontinued the siege soon after that for various reasons, but the loss of his Indian allies certainly factored into his decision. Native American warriors simply “were not pleas’d with the white Mens Method of going to war” and refused to take part unless it was on their terms.36 Indians also became frustrated that they could not act in ways that seemed natural, even commonsensical, to them, especially in times of war. They could not understand why the Englishmen prevented them, unless specifically ordered to do so, from killing enemy livestock or burning enemy towns to deprive them of supplies and shelter. One Indian even pointed out the irony that “it was a strange Thing that they were permitted to kill the Spaniards but not their Cattle.”37 British commanders restrained their allies from attacking anything not directly related to the campaign because they recognized that responsibility for their allies’ actions fell upon their shoulders. They argued that these items might be useful to their own cause in the future, but that explanation did not pacify the Indians who could have used those supplies or claimed them as prizes.38 Another problem that British commanders faced was the fact that Indian warriors would not stay in the field indefinitely. Unlike regular soldiers who served for life or colonial militiamen who stayed as long as instructed, Native Americans, largely because of their cultural mores surrounding battle, came and went as they pleased. If a campaign dragged into the hunting and harvest season, they departed to help their families prepare for the winter months ahead. If they heard about troubles back home, they left to find out what was wrong and to protect their towns from their enemies. Most commonly, they would participate in one battle, obtain their trophy, and go back to their people to tell their tale of bravery and collect their accolades. One of Oglethorpe’s subordinates, Thomas Jones, warned him that the Indians “loved to go and do their Business at once and return Home again” and urged him to strike quickly before they grew frustrated with his indecision and hesitancy.39 They had other priorities besides participation in these European conflicts and put their personal needs ahead of their allies, which was an understandable and practical approach to war but one that frustrated the British who relied upon their help and expected them to be readily available and that caused many to view Native American assistance as transient and unpredictable. Other soldiers were simply disgusted or appalled by the Indians’ ordinary behavior. Edward Kimber commented disdainfully on their seeming obsession with alcohol and complained about “The rude Manners of the Indians . . . who . . . were somewhat irksome, especially considering their Nastiness.”40 He also had little respect for Oglethorpe whom he accused of indulging the warriors in their bizarre practices and giving them too much leeway when it came to operations in the field.41 While Oglethorpe may have understood the need for Indian assistance and therefore showed some appreciation for their unusual customs, his subordinates did not and in turn lost their admiration for their commander and had their prejudices against the Indians reinforced. Despite the challenges of working with Indian warriors, the advantages far outweighed the disadvantages, and the lessons that the militia learned from them during the colonial wars did not go unheeded. The militia would become a decisive force when the British Empire sent troops to subdue its rebellious colonies decades later. Many scorned the militia as untrained and irregular when compared to the British army, but others recognized their strengths and abilities, many of which they had picked up from working with neighboring Indian warriors. Most importantly, the militia mastered specialized tactics from their Native American counterparts. They figured out how to use the terrain to their advantage, and their familiarity with the immediate countryside gave them a distinct advantage as the British army tried unsuccessfully 22

Indian and Colonial Military Cooperation

to chase down and eliminate the Patriot opposition, and the colonial militia effectively utilized geographical features to defeat their enemy. They became skilled at hunting and tracking and applied that practical knowledge to the field of battle. They became adept at conducting swift raids and traveling long distances quickly and quietly to avoid detection by the enemy. Colonials employed their surroundings, especially the dense forest, as cover from which they could fire upon their enemy. They knew how to use surprise to their advantage and when to retreat quickly to fight another day. The militia developed all of these skills during their years working with and fighting alongside their Indian allies. These experiences would be invaluable once the American Revolution began. In the South, Patriots and Tories fought small skirmishes against each other with the methods that they had perfected during the colonial wars and that they had borrowed from their Indian neighbors.42 The Indians themselves tried their best to stay out of this “war between brothers,” but those who did participate tended to side with the British since they saw the Americans as aggressive, land-hungry intruders in their country. Conflicts with advancing settlers over land and trade had soured what little cooperation had existed between Indians and colonists, and as they took up arms to protect their homeland, colonists did the same to extend their claims into territory that they believed was rightfully theirs.43 Perhaps the greatest surprise came when the Americans turned what they had learned from the Indians against them and went on to use those same tactics to defeat their British enemies and win their independence. While the Americans would never acknowledge their former Native American allies for teaching them these unique ways of war, they adopted and implemented them without a second thought about where they came from. Only now can scholars look back and appreciate the Indians’ contributions to the American military tradition and give them the credit that they are due.

Notes 1 General overviews of this time period and region include John Richard Alden, John Stuart and the Southern Colonial Frontier: A Study of Indian Relations, War, Trade, and Land Problems in the Southern Wilderness, 1754–1775 (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1944), 1–191; Herbert E. Bolton and Mary Ross, The Debatable Land: A Sketch of the Anglo-Spanish Contest for the Georgia Country (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1925); Norman W. Caldwell, “The Southern Frontier During King George’s War,” Journal of Southern History 7 (February 1941): 37–54; Verner W. Crane, The Southern Frontier, 1670–1732 (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1929); Timothy Paul Grady, Anglo-Spanish Rivalry in Colonial South-East America, 1650–1725 (London: Pickering & Chatto, 2010); Trevor R. Reese, Colonial Georgia: A Study in British Imperial Policy in the Eighteenth Century (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1963), 53–120; W. Stitt Robinson, The Southern Colonial Frontier, 1607–1763 (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1979), 74–120, 162–225; Ian K. Steele, Warpaths: Invasions of North America (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994), 151–174; J. Leitch Wright, Anglo-Spanish Rivalry in North America (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1971), 46–110. Military histories of this time period and region include Larry E. Ivers, British Drums on the Southern Frontier: The Military Colonization of Georgia, 1733–1749 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1974); Larry E. Ivers, “Rangers, Scouts, and Tythingmen” in Forty Years of Diversity: Essays on Colonial Georgia, eds. Harvey H. Jackson and Phinizy Spalding (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1984), 153–162; James M. Johnson, Militiamen, Rangers, and Redcoats: The Military in Georgia, 1754–1776 (Macon, Georgia: Mercer University Press, 1992); Trevor R. Reese, “Britain’s Military Support of Georgia in the War of 1739–1748,” Georgia Historical Quarterly 43 (March 1959): 1–10. 2 John T. Lanning, ed., The St. Augustine Expedition of 1740: A Report to the South Carolina General Assembly (Columbia: South Carolina Archives Department, 1954), 70, 168. 3 W.W. Abbot, The Royal Governors of Georgia, 1754–1775 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press for the Institute of Early American History and Culture, 1959), 47–48; Kenneth Coleman, Colonial Georgia: A History (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1976), 181. The next royal governor, Henry Ellis, was able to restore good relations with the Creeks and repair the damage done by his predecessor.

23

Julie Anne Sweet

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11 12 13 14

15

16 17

Edward J. Cashin, Governor Henry Ellis and the Transformation of British North America (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1994), 73–94. Steven C. Hahn, The Invention of the Creek Nation, 1670–1763 (Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press, 2004), 121–148; David H. Corkran, The Creek Frontier, 1540–1783 (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1967), 61–81. Tom Hatley, The Dividing Paths: Cherokees and South Carolinians Through the Era of Revolution (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993), 32–41; David H. Corkran, The Cherokee Frontier: Conflict and Survival, 1740–1762 (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1962), 11–24. Ivers, British Drums on the Southern Frontier, 102; Julie Anne Sweet, Negotiating for Georgia: British-Creek Relations in the Trustee Era, 1733–1752 (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2005), 143–144, 213; Rodney E. Baine, “General James Oglethorpe and the Expedition Against St. Augustine,” Georgia Historical Quarterly 84 (Summer 2000): 210–212. In 1702, an imprisoned English colonial militiaman told his Spanish captors that his commanding officer James Moore “had about a thousand men, which included 370 Indians,” but how he arrived at that figure remains unknown. Charles W. Arnade, The Siege of St. Augustine in 1702 (Gainesville: University of Florida Press, 1959), 32. In 1740, Oglethorpe requested enough provisions to feed and supply 1,000–2,000 Indian warriors, and he informed his colleagues in England that he expected upwards of 500 warriors to come to his assistance, but he never commanded more than 100 or so at any one time. Lanning, St. Augustine Expedition of 1740, 10, 11, 12, 15, 93, 96–97, 102, 106, 107, 154, 155; Mills Lane, ed., General Oglethorpe’s Georgia: Colonial Letters, 1733–1743 (Savannah, Georgia: Beehive Press, 1975), Volume II: 457, 459, 539. Gregory A. Waselkov, “Indian Maps of the Colonial Southeast” in Powhatan’s Mantle: Indians in the Colonial Southeast, eds. Gregory A. Waselkov, Peter H. Wood, and Tom Hatley, rev. ed. (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 2006), 439–449. Lane, General Oglethorpe’s Georgia, II: 620–622, 632–633. The British later named their victory “the Battle of Bloody Marsh” because of all the casualties that the Spanish had incurred there. For a detailed recounting of this battle, see Margaret Davis Cate, “Fort Frederica and the Battle of Bloody Marsh,” Georgia Historical Quarterly 27 (June 1943): 111–174. In another incident, the Indians notified the British of a trading path to connect Frederica to the mainland settlements, which would allow them to avoid treacherous valleys and bogs that could pose significant risks to travelers. Francis Moore, “A Voyage to Georgia, Begun in the Year 1735” in Our First Visit in America: Early Reports from the Colony of Georgia, 1732–1740, ed. Trevor R. Reese (Savannah, Georgia: Beehive Press, 1974), 118. Charles Hudson, The Southeastern Indians (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1976), 239–257, 272–281; Ivers, British Drums on the Southern Frontier, 147–148; Armstrong Starkey, European and Native American Warfare, 1675–1815 (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1998), 17–35. Moore, “A Voyage to Georgia,” 125–129; Lanning, St. Augustine Expedition of 1740, 32, 35, 38, 73, 74, 119, 120; “A Ranger’s Report of Travels with General Oglethorpe, 1739–1742” in Travels in the American Colonies, ed. Newton D. Mereness (New York: Macmillan, 1916), 225–227; Lane, General Oglethorpe’s Georgia, II: 446; Edward Kimber, A Relation, or Journal, of the Late Expedition to the Gates of St. Augustine on Florida (reprint, Gainesville: University Presses of Florida, 1976), 10, 28, 30–31. Kimber, A Relation, or Journal, of the Late Expedition, 17. Historians still argue whether or not this Native practice is the origin of the “rebel yell” that the militia and others will use in later conflicts. “Ranger’s Report,” 224–225. Mark F. Boyd, Hale G. Smith, and John W. Griffin, eds., Here They Once Stood: The Tragic End of the Apalachee Missions (Gainesville: University Presses of Florida, 1999), 91–95; Charles W. Arnade, “The English Invasion of Spanish Florida, 1700–1706,” Florida Historical Quarterly 41 (July 1962): 35–36. This scenario also played out at Forts Mosa, Picolata, and Diego in January–May 1740 during Oglethorpe’s advance on St. Augustine. Lanning, St. Augustine Expedition of 1740, 12, 18–19, 94, 108–109; Lane, General Oglethorpe’s Georgia, II: 443, 448, 452–453; Ivers, British Drums on the Southern Frontier, 113–124; Larry E. Ivers, “The Battle of Fort Mosa,” Georgia Historical Quarterly 51 (June 1967): 139. Ibid., 228. In a similar instance, another soldier noted, “several Parties of our Indians have been out, to their very Gates, and kept the Watches in utmost Panic and Fear.” Kimber, A Relation, or Journal, of the Late Expedition, 34. Lanning, St. Augustine Expedition of 1740, 38, 126, 165; Lane, General Oglethorpe’s Georgia, II: 442, 446, 579–580, 600, 602, 611, 622, 631, 634. Lane, General Oglethorpe’s Georgia, II: 620–622, 632–633; Cate, “Fort Frederica and the Battle of Bloody Marsh,” 111–174.

24

Indian and Colonial Military Cooperation 18 John Oldmixon, “The History of the British Empire in America” in Narratives of Early Carolina, 1650–1708, ed. Alexander S. Salley, Jr. (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1911), 344. 19 Lane, General Oglethorpe’s Georgia, II: 421. 20 Kimber, A Relation, or Journal, of the Late Expedition, 23. 21 Lane, General Oglethorpe’s Georgia, II: 451. 22 Hudson, Southeastern Indians, 325–327; Ivers, British Drums on the Southern Frontier, 147–148. The Iroquois were especially renowned for this practice known as “mourning war.” For a detailed analysis, see Daniel K. Richter, “War and Culture: The Iroquois Experience,” William and Mary Quarterly 40 (October 1983): 528–559; Daniel K. Richter, The Ordeal of the Longhouse: The Peoples of the Iroquois League in the Era of European Colonization (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press for the Institute of Early American History and Culture, 1992), 30–38. 23 Lane, General Oglethorpe’s Georgia, II: 579, 600, 602. 24 A ranger traveling with Oglethorpe praised the efforts of their Indian allies by writing, “the Friendly Indians annoy[ed] the Spaniards very much taking them Prisoners under the very Walls of the Castle of St. Augustine.” “Ranger’s Report,” 223. See also Lane, General Oglethorpe’s Georgia, II: 611, 634; Kimber, A Relation, or Journal, of the Late Expedition, 17. 25 Lane, General Oglethorpe’s Georgia, II: 446. 26 Moore, “A Voyage to Georgia,” 112, 118, 126, 128, 133; Lane, General Oglethorpe’s Georgia, II: 461; Lanning, St. Augustine Expedition of 1740, 19, 38, 108, 109, 120, 124, 126; Kimber, A Relation, or Journal, of the Late Expedition, 23, 27. 27 Lane, General Oglethorpe’s Georgia, II: 447. 28 “Ranger’s Report,” 223. 29 Lane, General Oglethorpe’s Georgia, II: 460, 536, 601. 30 In one instance, a scouting party returned with “five Scalps, one Hand, which was cut off with the Glove on, several Arms, Clothes, and two or three Spades” as evidence of their successful raid. Kimber, A Relation, or Journal, of the Late Expedition, 15. 31 Lanning, St. Augustine Expedition of 1740, 47. After this rejection, the warriors “went away very much disgusted, saying,‘that if they had carried the Head of an Englishman to the French they should not have been treated in that Manner’ and ‘that if he carried one of our Heads to the Governour of St. Augustine he should have been used by him like a Man, as he had been now used by the General like a Dog.’” Ibid. See also 118, 131–132; “An Impartial Account,” 44. 32 Ironically, Europeans back on the continent often used similar “barbaric” punishments and treatments toward their enemies. For a good comparison between early Indian and medieval European customs, see Daniel K. Richter, Before the Revolution: America’s Ancient Pasts (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2011), 11–63. 33 Lanning, St. Augustine Expedition of 1740, 24, 119. 34 An Impartial Account of the Late Expedition against St. Augustine under General Oglethorpe (reprint, Gainesville: University Presses of Florida, 1978), 43. The author went on to remark that “Common Reason made these untaught impolitick Savages true Prophets on this Occasion.” Ibid. 35 Lanning, St. Augustine Expedition of 1740, 170. See also Lane, General Oglethorpe’s Georgia, II: 464. 36 Kimber, A Relation, or Journal, of the Late Expedition, 19. 37 Lanning, St. Augustine Expedition of 1740, 24, 118. 38 Ibid., 24, 47, 118. 39 Ibid., 24, 119. 40 Kimber, A Relation, or Journal, of the Late Expedition, 17, 19, quotation on 31. 41 Ibid., 18–19, 31, 32. 42 General overviews about the American Revolution in the South include Ronald Hoffman, Thad W. Tate, Peter J. Albert, eds., An Uncivil War: The Southern Backcountry During the American Revolution (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 1985); Henry Lumpkin, From Savannah to Yorktown: The American Revolution in the South (New York: Paragon House Publishers, 1987); James Swisher, The Revolutionary War in the Southern Backcountry (Gretna, LA: Pelican Publishing, 2007); David K. Wilson, The Southern Strategy: Britain’s Conquest of South Carolina and Georgia, 1775–1780 (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 2008). 43 James H. O’Donnell, III, Southern Indians in the American Revolution (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1973); Colin G. Calloway, The American Revolution in Indian Country: Crisis and Diversity in Native American Communities (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1995), 182–271.

25

This page intentionally left blank

2 AFRICAN AMERICANS AND THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION Michael Lee Lanning

The waging of the Revolutionary War, a conflict of liberty and independence fought primarily by white colonials, personified the struggle of African Americans seeking their own measure of freedom.1 While colonials sought economic, political, and religious independence, blacks viewed it as a personal matter steeped in individual freedom from slavery and racial advancement. The war set precedents for whites and blacks alike that would continue for centuries. For blacks, service in the conflict provided a pathway to liberty and rights and the enhancement of opportunities. Unfortunately, the white majority also set a pattern for this and future wars—to call upon African Americans only in time of great need and then to ignore them and their contributions once peace resumed.2 The first Africans to arrive in the English colonies in North America landed at Jamestown as slaves in 1619. Over the next several decades, their numbers remained so few that the colonists saw no threat of a slave rebellion and armed their slaves to fight the Native Americans. Black slave and white master stood side by side to defend their homes and farms against their domestic adversaries.3 Freemen and slaves were welcomed into the local militias for the first several decades in the American colonies. The only reward for the black man was his self- survival albeit in continued slavery. As the slave population increased, white colonials became concerned about a possible rebellion by their chattel—especially if they continued to familiarize them with arms and military procedures. The General Assembly of Virginia was the first to react when it passed an act in 1639 declaring, “All persons except Negroes to be provided arms and ammunition or be fined at the pleasure of the Governor and Council.”4 Massachusetts passed a similar resolution in 1656, and Connecticut did likewise after a brief rebellion of slaves in 1661. By the end of the seventeenth century, all thirteen colonies officially banned blacks from their militias, the only exceptions being those freemen and slaves that served as fifers, drummers, cooks, and laborers—with the stipulation that they remain unarmed. Black slaves, who had little or no control over their own lives, did not accept this situation willingly or peacefully. By the mid-18th century more than two hundred fifty slave revolts had occurred throughout the colonies. All ended with the ruthless torturing and killing of the participants. Except for a few slaves who escaped to remote mountain and swamp villages, no slaves secured their freedom from these efforts.

27

Michael Lee Lanning

Prior to the outbreak of the American Revolution, the official policy continued to prohibit the arming of blacks in militias. When need exceeded regulation, white colonials overlooked it. They continued to arm their slaves to assist them when Native Americans resisted white expansion in King William’s War in 1689, Queen Anne’s War in 1702–1713, and in smaller campaigns. During the French and Indian War of 1756–1763, the British called upon their American colonists to support their military efforts by providing militia units. When faced with manpower shortages and resistance from whites to serve, militia leaders once more allowed blacks to join their ranks. Yet again, however, black males were mostly limited to positions as wagoners and laborers with very few acting as scouts or regular soldiers. The slaves in uniform did receive equal pay to that of white militiamen, but they had to surrender all or part of their wages to their owners. A few, those who displayed remarkable bravery, received their freedom for their service, while the vast majority returned to their masters as chattel. This “called upon when needed” practice of employing blacks as soldiers remained an unwritten policy from the beginning of the Revolutionary War and continued more than a century and a half later. Left out and ignored in peace, the black man returned to the battlefield once manpower needs of the nation demanded it. Despite the official policy of excluding blacks from the colonial militias, African Americans played a role in several of the events leading up to the Revolution and its early battles. Crispus Attucks, a runaway slave who had eluded capture for more than twenty years, was one of the key figures in the confrontation that led to the Boston Massacre on March 5, 1770.5 Several blacks were in the ranks of the local militias that fought in the war’s initial clash in Lexington with Minuteman Prince Estabrook being one of the first to fall to British bullets.6 With the beginning of actual hostilities, the rebellious colonials realized that they needed to further define the role of blacks in their military. Meeting in May 1775 and responsible for coordinating the early efforts of the Rebellion, the Committee of Safety, also known as the Hancock and Warren Committee, determined that while free African American men could serve, slaves remained prohibited from enlisting because their service would be “inconsistent with the principles that are to be supported, and reflect dishonor on this Colony.”7 Field commanders, always short of fighting men, simply ignored the order and enlisted slaves with the permission of their masters—or in some cases to serve as substitutes for their owners. At the Battle of Bunker Hill on June 17, 1775, Peter Salem, a former slave freed shortly before the engagement, was credited with killing the British assault force commander, Major John Pitcairn, with a musket shot. Fellow black soldier Salem Poor fought so well in the same battle that the Massachusetts Bay General Court commended him stating, “We would beg leave to say, in the person of this said Negro centers a brave and gallant soldier.”8 Shortly after the Battle of Bunker Hill, the Continental Congress assumed control of the colonial militias to form the Continental Army. Each of the colonies was fiercely independent and somewhat reluctant to fully cooperate on a united front. The New England colonies, where the revolution had begun, were much more in favor of fighting the British than were their southern neighbors. As a means of uniting the efforts of the colonies, the Continental Congress selected a Virginian as the Continental Army’s commander. George Washington, a slave owner who did not like the idea of armed blacks in uniform, quickly excluded them from the Continental Army’s ranks. On July 9, 1775, his adjutant general issued orders to recruiters not to enlist “any deserter from the Ministerial (British) army, nor any stroller, Negro, or vagabond.”9 In the early months of Washington’s command, he saw the number of troops in his army diminish because of the completion of enlistment commitments, battlefield casualties, and desertions. On October 8, 1775, Washington met with his staff to consider the authorization of black enlistments, but prejudice continued to prevail over practicality. They agreed to continue to 28

African Americans and the Revolution

exclude both slave and free blacks from enlisting. A few weeks later, the Continental Congress backed its commanding general by stating that blacks were to be “rejected altogether” from the army. On November 12, Washington issued official orders preventing the enlistment of blacks and forcing the discharge of those currently serving upon completion of their enlistments. Local and state militias followed suit and adopted the same policy.10 Racial prejudice as well as economic considerations buttressed white colonial reluctance to accept African Americans into their ranks. Many whites, particularly southern colonials, considered blacks to be inferior and cowardly sub-humans more suited to slave labor than to stand as equals in the military or colonial society. Although blacks, both freemen and slaves, had served honorably and bravely in the early battles of the Revolution, white soldiers refused to consider them equals. They particularly resented the taunting of the opposing British soldiers who shouted jingles at their American counterparts including: The rebel clowns, oh! what a sight Too awkward was the figure ‘ Twas yonder stood a pious weight And here and there a nigger.11 Slave owners also remained hesitant to risk their valuable property to the dangers of the battlefield. They were not entirely convinced that the fledgling rebel government could or would pay for their loss if a slave died in combat or was emancipated for his honorable service. Owners also had to consider that slaves removed from their plantations or other jobs would reduce production and resultant profits. Not all Americans opposed blacks serving in uniform, but they were in the minority— especially in the early days of fighting. General John Thomas, who commanded a Massachusetts brigade in the siege of Boston, wrote on October 24, 1775, “We have some Negroes; but I look on them, in general, equally serviceable with other men, for fatigue and in action; many of them proved themselves brave.”12 On the other side of the lines, the British recognized that they could take advantage of American prejudice. In doing so they could exploit their divisiveness concerning blacks, while at the same time solving some of their own manpower needs. Because the military commitments of the British Empire reached around the world, rebellion in the American colonies did not always receive priority in manpower assignments. As a result, John Murray, the earl of Dunmore and the royal governor of the colony of Virginia, issued a proclamation, “I do hereby declare all indentured servants, Negroes, or others (pertaining to the rebels) free, that are able and willing to bear arms, they joining His Majesty’s troops, as soon as you may be, for the more speedily reducing this Colony to proper dignity.”13 Hundreds of slaves, with no loyalty to their masters or to their rebellious colony, immediately risked the dangers of flight from bondage to cross English lines. Their motivation was as simple as it was driving—freedom. The added motivation of being promised arms and ammunition to fight their former owners must have also played a role. After all, once on the battlefield, musket balls had no prejudices or favorites as they killed with no regard for race, ownership, or political or military ranking. Within a month, three hundred escaped slaves joined what Dunmore called his Ethiopian Regiment. Each new soldier’s uniform sported the slogan, “Liberty to Slaves.”14 Over the next few months, more than thirty thousand slaves rallied to the English promise of freedom. While many fought the rebels, others assumed support roles as wagon masters, horse handlers, cooks, servants to officers, and laborers. Some took on more unusual jobs. Bill Richman, described as 29

Michael Lee Lanning

a “man of color,” acted as the hangman in the 1776 execution in New York City of rebel spy Nathan Hale.15 With his losses on the battlefield and the exodus of runaway slaves to Lord Dunmore, General Washington had to reconsider his exclusion policy. Once again, however, prejudice prevailed over good judgment. On December 30, 1775, the Continental Army commander-in-chief issued orders allowing the enlistment of free blacks but continued his ban on recruiting slaves. On February 21, 1776, he issued general orders restating and confirming this policy.16 Despite Washington’s orders, not all of his subordinate commanders complied. Always short of willing manpower, some commanders enlisted black men without worrying about the status of “free” or “slave.” In other instances, male slaves reported for duty as substitutes for their owners, who supported the Revolution but preferred to do so from the front porches of their homes rather than on the arduous and dangerous battlefields.17 Overall, however, black enlistments in the Continental Army remained few until the needs of the army overcame individual prejudices. By the fall of 1776, the British had defeated the colonials at the Battle of New York and had Washington’s army in full retreat. Washington, his fellow officers, and the founding fathers of the newly declared United States of America not only faced defeat but also the very real threat of hanging if the revolution failed. The Continental Army needed more soldiers for the revolution to continue—and for its leaders to survive. In September, the Continental Congress asked the states to provide an additional eighty-eight battalions to reinforce the Continental Army. Three months later, they requested an additional sixteen battalions with the added stipulation that the states could fill their quotas “by drafts, from their militias, or in any other way.”18 This rather innocuous phrase of “in any other way” opened the way for black enlistments. Northern and Mid-Atlantic states opened their ranks to freemen as well as slaves. The latter were promised their freedom for their service and slave owners promised compensation for the loss of their property. Southern states remained reluctant to enlist blacks as fighters, but did permit them to serve in non-combat support positions.19 By the end of the first year of the revolution, blacks had joined the Continental Army as infantrymen, support personnel, and personal servants. These African Americans stood side-by-side with their fellow white soldiers in integrated units. Although there certainly must have been lingering and overt prejudices, most common soldiers were much more interested in the fighting abilities of their fellow warriors than in the color of their skin. Their opponents also recognized the soldier ethos of the African Americans. On October 23, 1777, a Hessian mercenary officer in the service of the British wrote in his personal journal, “. . . no regiment is to be seen in which there are not Negroes in abundance; and among them are able-bodied, strong, brave fellows.”20 With so much official action and individual resentment against blacks serving in the military, the question arises as to why they stepped forward despite these adversarial attitudes to fight for the liberties of their white masters. Part of the answer is as old as warfare itself. From the beginning of history, military service—particularly in battle—has offered young men the opportunity to prove themselves, both to themselves and to those around them. Once in the ranks, each soldier fought for self-survival and for his fellow soldiers—black or white. This opportunity for self-validation and fighting as a member of a team—mixed with a sense of adventure and an escape from the boring, backbreaking labor on farms and factories—appealed to slaves. Military service also promised, although it did not always deliver, adequate food, clothing, and blankets. The idea of fighting for an independent United States or for any cause was mostly foreign to black slaves. Other than the feelings of newly arrived slaves from Africa who longed for their former villages and homeland, blacks had no reference to a sense of belonging in their present state. Some may have felt some loyalty to their masters—especially if they were reasonably fair and caring. However, most blacks had no affinity for their colony or future state, or for national 30

African Americans and the Revolution

unity. For the majority of slaves, those who never left the plantation, let alone allowed to learn how to read or write, the idea remained foreign. Communications between slave quarters with the outside world were limited. It was not that slaves did not care about such things; many did not know about them. All of these factors played a role in African Americans joining the fight for independence, but one major factor trumped all the others. The primary motivation behind black service in uniform in the American Revolution was that they fought for their individual freedom. While the conflict and its Declaration of Independence did not promise an end to slavery or freedom for their race, individuals who fought and served honorably were in most cases promised their personal liberty. That was more than sufficient motivation for blacks, at least for those who knew of the promise and could secure their owners’ permission to enlist, to line up at the recruiting offices. While the colonists grappled with the question of allowing African Americans to serve in uniform, they faced the even larger question of how they could rebel against Great Britain in the quest for their own liberty when they were continuing to deny it to their black slaves. By the outbreak of the revolution, fully one-fifth of the colonial population of two and a half million were black—and nearly all were chattel of their masters. Indeed, when Thomas Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence, he began by declaring that “all men are created equal.” In earlier drafts, the Virginian included a clause condemning British King George III for interfering with colonial efforts to halt further import of slaves.21 Southern colonists, however, so opposed the verbiage that Jefferson deleted it. There is no evidence that either he or any of the other founding fathers had any intention of having the Declaration of Independence and the resulting revolution bring an end to slavery. Regardless of the debate on the future of African American slaves, the rebel white colonists remained concerned that their revolt might fail and that they would pay the ultimate consequence of the hangman’s rope. Prejudice and opinions of the worth of black soldiers were placed aside as manpower needs overcame all other considerations. Even Washington welcomed blacks, as several accompanied his crossing of the Delaware River on Christmas 1776 to win a decisive victory over Hessian mercenaries at Trenton, New Jersey. Although its accuracy is debatable, later paintings of the crossing even placed a black soldier in Washington’s personal boat.22 Other Continental Army leaders also recognized the need for black enlistees if the rebellion were to prove a success. Alexander Hamilton, a member of Washington’s staff who would become the first United States Secretary of the Treasury, wrote on March 12, 1779, to the president of the Continental Congress, “I have not the least doubt, that the Negroes will make very excellent soldiers,” then continued in his letter with a thoughtful summary of the overall question of enlisting African Americans. Hamilton wrote: The contempt we have been taught to entertain for the blacks, makes us fancy many things that are founded neither in reason nor experience; and an unwillingness to part with property of so valuable kind will furnish a thousand arguments to show the impracticability or pernicious tendency of a scheme which requires such a sacrifice. But it should be considered that if we do not make use of them in this way, the enemy probably will; and that the best way to counteract the temptations they will hold out will be to offer them ourselves. An essential part of the plan is to give them their freedom with their muskets. This will secure their fidelity, animate their courage, and I believe will have a good influence upon those who remain, to open the door for their emancipation.23 Need soon provided additional opportunities for blacks to join the Continental Army. African Americans continued to be enlisted as individual replacements in infantry units and as laborers 31

Michael Lee Lanning

in rear areas. In November 1777, at the Continental Army’s long winter bivouac at Valley Forge, General James Varnum approached Washington with a proposal. Varnum’s home state of Rhode Island had a small population, and the British occupied two-thirds of its territory, causing great difficulties in the manning of its two infantry battalions. He suggested the combination of currently diminished units into one battalion, and that officers return to Rhode Island to enlist an all-black battalion. Washington agreed, as did Governor Nicholas Cooke of Rhode Island. The state’s Assembly followed suit by passing a resolution authorizing a black battalion along with measures to grant payment to owners who provided their slaves. Washington and Cooke had both admitted that they backed the measure because of the need for manpower. The Rhode Island Assembly did not mention need but rather attempted to cloak their actions in nobility by stating, “History affords us frequent precedents of the wisest, freest, and bravest nations, having liberated their slaves and enlisted them as soldiers to fight in defense of their country.”24 Over the next several months, five companies with an operating strength of two hundred twenty-six men under the command of white Colonel Christopher Greene came into existence. Blacks made up about one hundred forty members of the unit with the rest filled by Native Americans and former white indentured servants. Shortly after their formation, and before they were properly trained, the Rhode Island Black Regiment, as they were known, joined white units in defense of their state. In what became their most significant battle, the black regiment held the line for four hours against repeated assaults by British and Hessian infantry resulting in twenty-two casualties. Because of battlefield losses, disease, and the reluctance of some Rhode Islanders to provide their slaves, the numbers in the black regiment never exceeded one hundred fifty for the remainder of the conflict. After participating in fights in New Jersey, the unit faced tragedy. On May 14, 1781, Loyalists during the Battle of Pines Bridge, near Yorktown Heights, New York, killed the regiment’s commander, Colonel Green. Colonel Jeremiah Olney assumed command of the regiment and led it to the end of the war. He hailed his troops for “unexampled fortitude and patience.”25 Baron Ludwig von Closen, a German officer serving with the French in support of the Americans, noted shortly after the British surrender at Yorktown in 1781, “Three-quarters of the Rhode Island regiment consists of Negroes, and that regiment is the most neatly dressed, the best under arms, and the most precise in its maneuvers.”26 Other states also continued to recruit African American soldiers, but efforts to form all-black units were extremely limited. A Boston militia company of blacks, known as the Bucks, briefly took the field.27 Connecticut fielded a black unit of fifty-two slaves and freemen who served until November 1782 before disbanding with its veterans integrated into white units for the remainder of the war.28 In addition to the Continental and British armies, blacks served in the ranks of their allies as well. During the efforts to retake the Port of Savannah from the British in September and October 1779, a French force of thirty-five hundred soldiers supported the Americans. About six hundred of these troops were freemen or slaves recruited in the French Caribbean colonies. Among these was Henri Christophe, who later used the skills he learned as a soldier to lead the slave rebellion that took over the island nation of Haiti.29 The Spanish governor of Louisiana, Bernardo de Galvez, also employed black soldiers in his campaigns against British forces in the Mississippi Valley and the Gulf Coast. Estimates of the numbers of blacks in his ranks range from ten to fifty percent. Galvez allowed African Americans to become officers, and six were cited for bravery with the King of Spain awarding them valor medals.30 African Americans played a significant role at sea as well as on land during the revolution.31 From the beginnings of the colonization of North America, duty at sea was extremely hazardous. 32

African Americans and the Revolution

Fishing boats and merchant vessels were always short of crewmen and paid little attention to a man’s color or whether he was slave or free if he was willing to serve. This continued into the revolution with the newly formed U.S. Navy and state navies welcoming black sailors. At no time during the war did the Continental or state governments forbid the enlistment of African American sailors. Whites prohibited blacks from becoming officers, but many served as pilots for ships entering harbors and the inland waterways. A slave named Caesar, property of Carter Tarrant of Hampton, Virginia, was at the wheel of the schooner Patriot when it captured the British brig Fanny to secure a much-needed cargo of arms and supplies. The Virginia legislature finally recognized his service by purchasing his freedom on November 14, 1789. Meanwhile, the U.S. Marine Corps, in its infancy, also welcomed black enlistees. At least thirteen served in the Corps aboard U.S. and state flagged ships with one killed in action aboard the brig Reprisal in 1777.32 There is no doubt that blacks served in the Army, Navy, and Marine Corps during the American Revolution. Their exact numbers, however, are impossible to calculate or confirm. Enlistment records, when kept at all, rarely noted the race of soldiers. From the available official and unofficial records, most scholars agree that about five thousand African Americans served. This is out of a total of three hundred thousand men who joined the ranks of the Continental Army and the state militias.33 This shows that only about one in sixty, or two percent, of the enlistments were black. These numbers, however, are not incisive because many African Americans enlisted, or were volunteered by their masters, for the duration of the war.34 Most whites enlisted for shorter periods. During the long conflict, the Continental Army never had more than thirty-five thousand soldiers in the field at any one time, resulting in a higher percentage of blacks being in the ranks than their enlistment numbers reveal. Only one surviving document confirms the numbers of black soldiers. It is a single-page report signed by Adjutant General Alexander Scammell titled “Return of Negroes in the Army, 24th Augt. 1778.”35 It states that on that date, 755 blacks were serving in the various brigades of the Continental Army. At that time, the Continental Army was at one of its lowest manpower levels with only about 7,600 soldiers in its ranks—ten percent of whom were black. Meanwhile, the records of the numbers of African Americans, free or enslaved, in the American Navy are even less reliable. According to Naval records, about 1,500 blacks served aboard Continental and state flagged vessels—about ten percent of the total of rebel sailors.36 Many black revolutionary soldiers and sailors earned their freedom through their service and sacrifice in uniform. Interestingly, however, more enslaved blacks earned their freedom during the revolution to gain American liberty by fighting on the side of the British. At the end of the war and despite American protests, the Crown evacuated loyal black personnel. More than a thousand escaped slaves who joined Lord Dunmore’s Ethiopian Regiment earned their freedom as did about two-thirds of those who crossed the lines into British camps to act as support personnel. Many moved to Canada, three thousand of them settling in Nova Scotia. In 1792, others sailed to West Africa to establish the colony of Sierra Leone.37 The majority of the blacks, though, departed for the British West Indies. Upon landing, many remained free, but at least a thousand returned to slavery against their will. After signing the Treaty of Paris that formally ended the war on September 24, 1783, George Washington reduced the number of regular army soldiers. Neither he nor the new leaders of the United States had any desire to have a standing army. Within a matter of months, the Colonial Army had fewer than eighty men. The new nation’s navy, which had begun discharging sailors after the victory at Yorktown, had sold all its ships by mid-1785. During this period, the Marine Corps reduced its numbers until all were out of the service by September 1783. 33

Michael Lee Lanning

It did not take long for U.S. officials to realize that they needed a larger armed force than this to protect the country against uprising by Native Americans and from foreign threats. The army slowly increased to 1,200 soldiers, but there were ample white volunteers to fill the ranks, leaving no opportunities for blacks. On May 8, 1792, the U.S. Congress formalized the exclusion of African Americans, free or enslaved, by resolving that military service was restricted to “free able-bodied white male citizens.” State militia laws generally followed federal regulations with the exception of Georgia and South Carolina that continued to employ blacks as laborers in their militias. North Carolina allowed freemen to enlist in their militia but limited their service to musicians. On July 11, 1798, the U.S. Congress reauthorized the Marine Corps but excluded “negroes, mulattoes, or Indians” from its ranks.38 The U.S. Navy issued a similar order the following month but, unlike the Marine Corps, did not enforce it. While the Army and Marines had no competition for enlistees, the Navy faced manpower shortages because many sailors, both black and white, joined the better paying merchant and fishing fleets. As a result, captains signed any able-bodied seaman on board regardless of race; blacks appear on the rosters of most naval warships of the period. Black participation in the American Revolution resulted in some improvements for their race. Many of the former colonists recognized that slavery was inconsistent with the objectives of freedom and liberty fought for on the battlefield and promised in the Constitution. Massachusetts, Vermont, and New Hampshire completely abolished human servitude. Other Northern states instituted plans to slowly eliminate slavery. The vast majority of America’s slaves, however, resided in Southern states where innovations in agriculture and manufacturing increased the demand for their labor. In fact, the number of enslaved African Americans increased by sevenfold from five hundred thousand to three and a half million from the end of the Revolutionary War until their emancipation during and after the Civil War. Upon the war’s conclusion, most Americans viewed blacks as property to increase the wealth of their owners rather than as soldier-partners. Indeed, white historians ignored African American participation when remembering the war, while few outlets existed for blacks to recall their side of the story. The earliest and best summary of African Americans in the revolution appeared during the Civil War, a conflict that finally granted them their freedom. An article entitled “Negro Soldiers in the Revolution” in the September 16, 1863 issue of the Army and Navy Journal observed: The record is clear, that from the beginning to the conclusion of the war of the Revolution, Negroes served in the Continental Armies with intelligence, courage, and steadfastness; and that important results in several instances are directly traceable to their good conduct.39

Notes 1 Benjamin Quarles, The Negro in the American Revolution (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1961), vii. 2 Michael Lee Lanning, The African American Soldier: From Crispus Attucks to Colin Powell (Secaucus, NJ: Birch Lane Press, 1997), 17. 3 Joseph T. Wilson, The Black Phalanx (Hartford, CN: American Publishing Co., 1890), 26. 4 Jessie J. Johnson, The Black Soldier Documented (Hampton, VA: Hampton Institute, 1970), 4. 5 John Fiske, “Crispus Attucks,” Negro History Bulletin 33 (March 1970): 58–67. 6 Philip S. Foner, Blacks in the American Revolution (Westport, CN: Greenwood Press, 1975), 58. 7 Norman Gelb, Less Than Glory (New York: G. P. Putman’s Sons, 1984), 178.

34

African Americans and the Revolution 8 Leslie H., Fishel, Jr., and Benjamin Quarles, The Negro American: A Documentary History (New York: William Morrow, 1967), 48. 9 Johnson, The Black Soldier Documented, 33. 10 George H. Moore, Employment of Negroes in the American Army of the Revolution (New York: Charles T. Evans, 1862), 7. 11 Foner, Blacks in the American Revolution, 4. 12 Quarles, The Negro in the American Revolution, 12. 13 Fishel and Quarles, The Negro American, 56. 14 Gelb, Less Than Glory, 178. 15 Ibid., 212. 16 Wilson, The Black Phalanx, 40–41. 17 Foner, Blacks in the American Revolution, 58. 18 Ibid., 55. 19 Quarles, The Negro in the American Revolution, 54–58. 20 Foner, Blacks in the American Revolution, 58. 21 David Colbert, Eyewitness to America (New York: Pantheon, 1997), 82–83. 22 Bill Belton, “Prince Whipple: Soldier of the Revolution,” Negro History Bulletin (October 1973): 126–127. 23 Harold C. Syrett and Jacob E. Cook, eds., The Papers of Alexander Hamilton (New York: Columbia University Press, 1961), Vol II, 17–18. 24 Wilson, The Black Phalanx, 52. 25 Bernard C. Nalty, Strength for the Fight (New York: Free Press, 1986), 15. 26 Evelyn M. Acomb, trans. and ed., The Revolutionary Journal of Baron Ludwig von Closen, 1780–1783 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1958), 92. 27 William C. Nell, The Colored Patriots in the American Revolution (Boston: Robert F. Wallcut, 1855), iii. 28 Foner, Blacks in the American Revolution, 58. 29 Nalty, Strength for the Fight, 17. 30 Robert R. McDonald, John R. Kemp, and Edward F. Hass, Louisiana Black Heritage (New Orleans: Louisiana State Museum, 1979), 53–54. 31 Herbert Aptheker, The Negro in the American Revolution (New York: International Press, 1940), 28. 32 Fishel and Quarles, The Negro American, 53–54. 33 Foner, Blacks in the American Revolution, 67. 34 Charles Royster, A Revolutionary People at War (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1979), 241. 35 Fisher and Quarles, The Negro American, 51. 36 James B. Farr, Black Odyssey (New York: Peter Lang, 1989), 113. 37 Wallace Brown, “Negroes in the Revolution”, History Today (August 1964): 560. 38 Bernard Nalty, The Right to Fight (Quantico, VA: Marine Corps Historical Division, 1995), 2. 39 Lanning, The African American Soldier, 15.

35

This page intentionally left blank

3 RACE AND REPUBLICANISM Understanding the Mindset of the Mexican War Soldier Richard Bruce Winders

“Although this is the finest soil and climate joined I have any knowledge of yet, it will never be much of a country while occupied by the present race.”1

Congress officially declared war on Mexico on May 13, 1846, but in truth the conflict had been under way for nearly a decade. The United States had initially welcomed Mexico’s break from Spain in 1821, since its adoption of a federal system of government seemed to indicate that Mexico had chosen the road to modernity. However, hostilities between Mexico’s rival political factions soon shook confidence in the population’s ability to effectively govern itself as a republic. These revolts and counter revolts did not go unnoticed in the United States, leading Americans to believe that Mexico would not shed its Spanish and indigenous past without help. U.S. territorial ambitions had also created tension as Americans openly coveted Mexico’s northern frontier. In the early 1820s, Mexico opened Texas to immigration to Americans and Europeans. Americans began venturing into New Mexico and California. In Texas, American immigrants (Texians) became involved in Mexico’s internal politics. Their original goal was separate statehood for Texas within the Mexican federal republic. In 1836, however, Texians seceded and proclaimed Texas independent. Even though the slavery issue prevented some from supporting the Republic of Texas, a majority of U.S. citizens viewed Texians as fellow countrymen. Annexation brought the United States and Mexico to the brink of war. Once declared, thousands of Americans joined the military, eager to battle Mexicans. Race became a major factor in the Mexican War. Not only were combatants different races, additional races (African, Indian, and European) would also have roles to play. An examination of contemporary racial attitudes is critical to understanding the mindset of white American soldiers during the war. This chapter explores those attitudes and offers examples of how these beliefs shaped both thought and action. Soldiers represent the beliefs and attitudes of the society from which they come.2 Euro-American soldiers certainly carried their racial attitudes to Mexico during the Mexican War (1846–1848). Education played an important role in informing citizens of the new American republic about their world. Indeed, it shaped their point of view on race. Through atlases and geographical studies, geographers divided the earth’s population into five categories: (1) European, (2) African, (3) Asiatic, or Mongolian, (4) Americans, and (5) Malay. Europeans, the category that also 37

Smith’s Atlas, for Schools, Academies and Families: An Atlas to Accompany The Productive Geography, by Roswell Chamberlain Smith. Philadelphia, 1835.

Note: The emphasis here is on the Western Hemisphere, North and South America, and the table explaining the different racial groups and their sociological advancement.

Source: Sabin Americana. Gale, Cengage Learning. Gale Digital Collections. 03 July 2015

Map 3.1

Race and Republicanism

included the citizens of the United States, inhabited Europe and had white or light complexions. Dark-skinned people inhabited Africa. Asiatics or Mongolians, people with yellowish skin, inhabited the regions that made up Asia. Americans were reddish skinned indigenous people of North America. The brown skinned people of the Pacific Islands received the title of Malay. Though rudimentary, Europeans seeking to understand the world did so, partly, by the color of a region’s indigenous population.3 Race ran much deeper than skin color, though. Euro-Americans judged other civilizations by their perceived level of progress.4 Some races exhibited a more advanced state of progress in areas such as agriculture, industry, commerce, and the treatment of women. The categories from the most to the least developed were these: enlightened, civilized, half-civilized, barbarous, and savage. Two additional factors, religion and government, were also associated with race (see Map 3.1 and Table 3.1).5 According to this theory, white Euro-Americans belonged to the most advanced race because their society was industrious, scientific, and possessed a wide network of commerce. Navigable rivers, roads, and railroads linked distant parts of their nation. The cartographic icon chosen to signify enlightened nations like theirs was the spinning wheel, a device that indicated innovation and production. Schoolhouses, hospitals, and courthouses served as further physical examples of enlightenment. Moreover, they practiced the one true religion—Christianity. Their government represented all citizens and protected individual property rights. Women and others not accorded full or any rights of citizenship received benevolent treatment based on religious scriptures as

Table 3.1 Author Created Content Based on Smith’s Atlas, for Schools, Academies and Families: An Atlas to Accompany The Productive Geography, by Roswell Chamberlain Smith. Philadelphia, 1835 Level

Region

Achievements

Language Skills

Government

Religion

Enlightened

N. & Middle Europe, U.S.

Printed Language

Democracy

Christianity (Protestant)

Civilized

Mexico, Poland, Portugal, Russia

Printed Language

Monarchy, Aristocracy, Democratic

Christianity (Catholicism)

Half-Civilized

China, Japan, Southern Asia, Persia, Turkey, North Africa Africa, Asia, Siberia, Islands of Polynesia N. & S. America, Africa, Australia, Pacific Islands

Agriculture, Industry, Commerce, and Fine Arts Agriculture, Industrial Crafts, Commerce, and Fine Arts Agriculture, Industrial Crafts, Limited External Commerce Agriculture, Permanent Towns & Villages Hunters-Gatherers, Migratory, Wore Skins, Huts, No Personal Property

Written Language

Despots

False Religion

Written Language

Despots

False Religion

Verbal Language

No Government

No Religion

Barbarous

Savage

Source: Sabin Americana. Gale, Cengage Learning. Gale Digital Collections. 03 July 2015 . Note: Half-Civilized Societies treated women as slaves; Civilized Societies treated women as companions; Enlightened Societies treated women with politeness and respect.

39

Richard Bruce Winders

well as republican virtue. With this as their standard, Euro-Americans naturally found all other races lacking. Descendants of Africans living in the United States, whether or not held in bondage, bore the stigma of this racial theory. Classified as savage, barbarian, and half-civilized, Africans were believed by Euro-American whites to make up the bottom of the civilized world. Whites also felt that Africans were ignorant, superstitious, and generally ruled by despots. Hopelessly backward in the minds of Euro-Americans, these people proved ill-suited for republican citizenship. Not far removed from beasts, labor was their natural lot. Yet, whites thought that they had a duty to raise them from darkness. How far could or should they be raised remained an important question. Indians suffered a similar stigmatization. Based on the prevailing racial theory, white EuroAmericans viewed them as savages: an ignorant and superstitious race whose existence blocked the way of progress. A bow and arrow, an antiquated weapon, served as their cartographic marker. However, this view was not universal as some whites believed that these tribesmen proved far more advanced than generally recognized. Efforts by missionaries in Oregon as well as contact with Americans in general indicated that they had the capacity for rapid advancement. In fact, the newly founded religious sect called the Latter Day Saints (Mormons) even elevated the indigenous race of North America to people of the Bible. Although classified as civilized, Mexicans fell short in the estimation of most white EuroAmericans. Negative attitudes toward Mexicans had surfaced in the Texas Revolution (1835– 1836). Henry Smith, the provisional governor, opposed giving any aid to Mexican federalists, even if they were fighting against Santa Anna’s centralist administration. He warned, “I consider it bad policy to fit out or trust Mexicans in any matter connected with our Government,” predicting, “we will in the end find them inimical and treacherous.”6 Others had pointed to the fact that Mexicans had inherited the Spanish tendency toward cruelty. Post-battle executions at Tampico, the Alamo, and Goliad served as examples of Mexico’s institutionalized barbarism.7 The post-revolution Texas-Mexico conflict added more examples. Mistreatment and executions of Texians at Santa Fé, Mier, Salado, and Perote made Euro-Americans shudder in horror.8 During the Siege of Puebla (September 13–October 12, 1847), one Pennsylvania volunteer, J. Jacob Oswandel, wrote that the Mexicans claimed to make Puebla another “Alamo” if the U.S. troops did not surrender.9 U.S. soldiers claimed that the Mexicans killed all wounded Americans they found on the battlefield, a practice that demonstrated a weakness of character. During the Mexican War, Texans10 remembered the Alamo and other atrocities and sought revenge. At the Battle of Monterrey, one Texas volunteer explained to a Mississippian that he was taking a woman’s money because Mexicans had once robbed him. Another American soldier wrote home that a cycle of tit-for-tat occurred around Monterrey daily: a Mexican would ambush a Texan, and Texans would round up and execute several Mexicans in retaliation. The situation became so bad that General Zachary Taylor declined to keep Colonel Jack Hays’s 1st Regiment of Mounted Texas Volunteers at the expiration of their term of service, prompting expressions of relief from both the local populations and some American soldiers. In fact, Taylor wrote to the War Department on October 6, 1846, “I have respectfully to report that the entire force of mounted Texas volunteers has been mustered out of service and is now returning home by companies. With their departure we may look for a restoration of quiet and order in Monterey, for I regret to report that some shameful atrocities have been perpetrated by them since the capitulation of the town.”11 Texans, however, were not the only perpetrators of violence against Mexican civilians. Arkansas volunteers took the men of Patos to a cave where they proceeded to slaughter them. The murder of one of their comrades and their desire to make an example out of the community precipitated the massacre. The barbarity of the incident abated only after soldiers from other units intervened to stop the bloodshed.12 40

Race and Republicanism

In addition to compassion, Euro-Americans believed that Mexicans lagged behind in other areas: agriculture, industry, and commerce. These failings resulted in the land not fulfilling its potential. In their reasoning, it was clear that the fault must lay with the Mexicans themselves, who were a mixture of Spaniard, Indian, and even African. The majority of Mexicans were indigenous to the region, the descendants of the tribes changed little since the Spanish Conquest. Although a Christian nation, Mexico followed Catholicism, which brought into question Mexicans’ ability to be true republicans since they owed allegiance to Rome. A church building, the cartographic icon for a civilized nation, expressed the power that an established religion such as Catholicism had over its people. The series of changing governments in Mexico since independence from Spain in 1821 disappointed Euro-Americans. To them, Mexico had committed the ultimate civil sin of betraying the republican ideals of the Enlightenment and deserved punishment.13 The American’s pre-war military was woefully small and unprepared to meet the demands placed on it by the conflict. Numbering less than five thousand men and officers, the regular establishment attempted to fill the units already authorized by Congress through increased recruitment. However, by mid-war, a looming manpower shortage prompted the raising of ten new regiments to augment those that already existed. All told, only 26,922 regulars served from 1846–1848, not enough to prosecute the war. Legislation allowed individual states to provide volunteers for national service. Two separate calls (the first for twelve months and the second for the duration of the war) resulted in a total of 73,532 state volunteers for the war. Although there may have been exceptions, these men—regulars and volunteers—were predominately white Protestant Euro-Americans.14 The 1841 edition of the General Regulations of the United States Army limited recruiting to “free white male persons.”15 Purportedly, these men received an examination by a doctor in the presence of the recruiting officer and were checked for medical conditions or defects that might hinder their usefulness. Examiners also looked for any obvious or subtle indication of race other than white. Dr. Thomas Henderson addressed the issue of race in a postwar edition of Hints on the Medical Examination of Recruits for the Army, in which he wrote, “The question can never occur whether the man be white or black; it arises in cases of the offspring of the white man, and of the mulatto woman.” Henderson related two incidences where this had occurred. In the first case, the man remained in the service. In the latter, the Army discharged an enlisted recruit at Fort Monroe, Virginia, after his father revealed him the offspring of a union with a mulatto slave woman.16 Henderson contended that the matter was serious because “Soldiers would not tolerate the mixed breed as comrades.” The doctor offered several suggestions to prevent the enlisting of mulattoes by mistake. “The most conspicuous feature is the hair,” noted Henderson, “which has a very coarse texture.” Even this was not enough because “coarse hair is frequently seen in undoubtedly white cases.” Moreover, “The color of the skin is not more dark than in many unmixed white families in the Southern States, or in the branches of the olive colored (Mongolian or Mauritanian) race seen in all parts of the country.” He offered one other method of ascertaining a man’s race. “One of the best tests in doubtful cases of this kind is afforded by the appearance of the external organs of generation. . . . The skin covering these organs is much darker in persons having a trace of negro blood, than in the white race.” In cases of doubt the recruiting officer and not the surgeon had the final decision whether to enlist the man or reject him.17 Based on Henderson’s experience, it is quite possible that these cases were not isolated and that a number of light-skinned mulattoes without discernible African features served in the nation’s military during the Mexican War undetected. The states had their own restrictions regarding race and the military. Louisiana and Arkansas specifically stated that only “free white men” had the right to bear arms. Kentucky, Indiana, and Illinois excluded “negroes, mulattoes, and Indians” from their militias. Tennessee used the 41

Richard Bruce Winders

same language regarding “free white men” and the right to bear arms but exempted “free men of colour” from “military duty in time of peace.” This opens the possibility that light skinned Afro-Americans may have served in the ranks of Tennesseans, but this is only conjecture without further evidence.18 The absence of racial restrictions in other state constitutions likely means that “white” was so obvious as to not need inclusion. Clearly, both federal and state regulations prevented races other than white from serving openly in the ranks. Immigrants from northern Europe provided another source of recruits for both the national and states’ military forces. They often faced discrimination, however, due to their perceived backwardness and ignorance since many came from “civilized” Catholic societies. Irish, Scots, and German immigrants gravitated to the army in large numbers as a way to gain a foothold in their newly adopted land. Established immigrant communities, especially in Illinois and Georgia, provided entire companies for volunteer regiments.19 Although most immigrants served their adopted country loyally, enough Irishmen deserted the U.S. Army in Mexico to form a unit in the Mexican Army designated the San Patricio Battalion.20 Afro-Americans most commonly occupied the subordinate role of military servant, a niche also filled by European immigrants. General Regulation allotted servants to commissioned officers on the basis of rank: seven for a major general; three for a brigadier general; two each for colonels, lieutenant colonels, majors, and captains; and one each for 1st and 2nd lieutenants.21 Hypothetically, nearly fifty servants could have accompanied a full regiment of ten companies with its field and staff officers into the field. Multiplied by the number of regiments operating in a given theater in Mexico, servants in camps and field would have numbered in the hundreds. And while not all were Afro-American slaves, a significant number of them were. Why then, is there so little mention of Afro-Americans serving with the U.S. military in the Mexican War? One possible explanation is that their presence was so common as to not merit noting.22 It often took an extraordinary event like an accident, running away, or heroic action or death to merit mention. Several officers noted that “Lieutenant [Braxton] Bragg had one of his negro boys killed instantaneously, and another badly injured, by lightning.”23 After the explosion of the steamboat Dayton off Corpus Christi, Lieutenant William S. Henry observed that the accident left “one negro not only scalded, but his flesh burned to a crisp.”24 Prior to hostilities, diary entries by several officers camped on the north bank of the Rio Grande told of runaway slaves. Henry noted that “Three slaves of officers have run away . . . [due to] every inducement . . . offered by the enemy.” Furthermore, he related that the “Matamoras Gazette noted the presence of six [runaway] slaves in the town.”25 Two slaves serving Lieutenant Colonel Henry Clay, Jr., one of whom himself was wounded, recovered Clay’s body from the battlefield at Buena Vista.26 Captain Samuel H. Walker’s slave reportedly died fighting by his side at Huamantla.27 The mundane went unmentioned. A 1798 law excluded people of color from service in the U.S. Marines, but the Navy and the merchant service allowed Afro-Americans to serve aboard ship. Although the Navy tried limiting the percentage of persons of color to five percent of the total number of sailors enlisted, anecdotal evidence indicated ships’ crews easily exceeded that quota. Race was an uncertain qualifier as “black” could be applied to Afro-Americans as well as West Indians, Hawaiians, and South Sea Islanders. According to historian Harold D. Langley, sailors generally accepted dark skinned sailors as shipmates and equals. Some officers, however, expressed a dislike for this class of seamen, as shown by their deeds and words. Like their counterparts in the Army, southern naval officers used their slaves as personal servants. Nevertheless, most Afro-Americans at sea served honorably as sailors in both the Navy and the merchant service. Two facts lay behind the significant number of people of color serving in America’s Navy: the cosmopolitan nature of sea service and the perpetual difficulty manning the nation’s naval and merchant fleets.28 42

Race and Republicanism

While familiar with the biracial blending of Euro- and Afro-Americans and the racial ratios their mating produced (mulatto, quadroon, and octoroon), American soldiers serving in the war marveled at the variety of racial categories they encountered upon entering Mexico. Indeed, miscegenation was a recognized and accepted practice in the country. Racially, a Mexican could be anyone from a purebred Spaniard to a full-blood Indian, and any mix between. To their advantage, light skinned and cultured Mexican men and women could often pass for Spaniards or Europeans, thereby evading this racial hierarchy. Private Thomas D. Tennery, a volunteer from Illinois, presented a common thought about the result of Mexico’s racial makeup when he wrote, “the Spanish and Indian do not make a race of people with patriotism and candor enough to support a republic, much less to form and sustain one out of the present deranged fabric called the Republic of Mexico.”29 Although classed as civilized, Mexicans were not “enlightened” enough to be on the same level as Euro-Americans. While skin color served as a racial identifier, many soldiers in the American Army judged Mexicans by their level of society, another component of race.30 “Are these the people we came to fight?” exclaimed Indiana volunteer Benjamin F. Scribner upon encountering Mexican traders near Matamoros. Barna Upton, a private in the 3rd U.S. Infantry, said of the Mexicans along the Rio Grande, “How strong the contrast with the people of New England.”31 Complained Sergeant Thomas Barclay, a Pennsylvania volunteer, “Other countries [besides Mexico] try to keep up with the spirit of the age.”32 Americans condemned Mexican agriculture, industry, and commerce as backwards. Several reported that activities, such as farming, remained at least two hundred years behind the time, if not more. Mexican villages, constructed of simple mud-dried bricks, evoked Biblical images in U.S. soldiers’ minds. Burros, ox carts, and sedan chairs were common modes of transportation in Mexico, but to American soldiers whose country was home to factories, steamboats, and railroads, the indigenous population of the country seemed indolent and unproductive. Predicted Captain Robert Anderson, the future defender of Fort Sumter, “Many, very many years must pass before the common people, the public of this miscalled republic, will be sufficiently enlightened to enjoy the blessings of independence.”33 Given that Mexico had rich land and valuable resources, Euro-American visitors looked for a reason to explain Mexico’s failure to progress. Recall that religion formed another component of race. Critics charged that the Catholic Church and its clergy held Mexico back because the institution owned much of the nation’s wealth and its priests preyed on the ignorant population. Its status as Mexico’s state religion gave the Church enormous influence in political affairs. In fact, it had been one of the biggest supporters of the centralist faction that had been fighting Mexican republicans since the early days of independence. According to Sergeant Barclay, the result was that “Two great parties here divide all power and wealth—the Church and the Army. Without their support no government can stand and with a tacit understanding they wink at the very tyranny and excesses of each other.”34 Some prominent Mexican politicians seconded the Euro-American view of Mexico’s unsuitability for republican government. Santa Anna reportedly explained to Joel R. Poinsett that “. . . it is very true that I threw up my cap for liberty with great ardor, and perfect sincerity, but soon found the folly of it. A hundred years to come and my people will not be fit for liberty. They do not know what it is, unenlightened as they are, despotism is the proper government for them, but there is no reason why it should not be a wise and virtuous one.”35 Another U.S. diplomat, Waddy Thompson, related that Santa Anna “. . . faithfully sustained the government thus established, until it was fairly tried and generally thought, by the most enlightened men, that the experiment had failed.” Thompson confessed, “I shall be most agreeably surprised if a Federal Republic shall succeed in Mexico, for many years to come; nor do I see much reason for such a form of government there.”36 Lorenzo de Zavala, an ardent republican who became the first vice-president of 43

Richard Bruce Winders

the Republic of Texas in 1836, had welcomed the entrance of Euro-Americans across Mexico’s northern states. Zavala reported after an 1828 visit to the United States that “These colonist and businessmen along with their hard work carry with them habits of freedom, economy, industry, their austere and religious ways, their individual independence and their republicanism. What changes must these enterprising guests not make in the moral and material existence of the former inhabitants? . . . The Mexican republic then within a few years will come to be molded to a combined regimen of the American system and Spanish customs and traditions.”37 It is easy to see why U.S. soldiers believed they were bringing progress to a backward race of people. Euro-Americans even judged U.S. slavery superior to Mexican bondage. The American Star, a newspaper published by soldiers of the U.S. Army, printed a long article denouncing the evils of debt peonage and upholding slavery’s purported benefits. Noted Raphael Semmes, a lieutenant with the American Navy who traveled in Mexico, “The great majority of Indian laborers, on the larger haciendas, are in a much worse condition than the slaves of our southern states.” Slave owners supposedly cared for their chattel in sickness and in health, when young and when aged. In contrast, Mexican landowners could turn their laborers out to fend for themselves once the peons became sick or old. Comparisons were made about housing, with slave quarters described as neat and sturdy, while the huts of peons were often little more than live-in “miserable huts, no better than the wigwam of the North American Indian.” 38 Noted a volunteer from Pennsylvania, “These poor . . . beings, the descendants of the lordly Montezumas, are made beasts of burdens, are sold and transferred from master to master and undergo a slavery far more abject than the negroes of the north.”39 Lieutenant Henry claimed that Major Samuel Ringgold’s “boy” returned after running away to Matamoros, even though he was treated well, inferring that even American slaves preferred their bondage over that of peons.40 Providing goods and services proved to be a boon for Mexican bondsmen according to one Mississippi volunteer who claimed that “a grate [sic] number of Peones [sic] have bought their Freedom. . . . At some placis [sic] on this line [in northern Mexico] where troops have been stationed for some time there is hardly a Peone [sic] to be found.”41 Not only did American soldiers see themselves as liberating Mexico from the tyrants that misruled it, they emancipated its downtrodden as well. Euro-Americans encountered another race during the Mexican War: the American race of Indians. The two had a long history of contact dating from America’s days as a series of English colonies. Although the contact could be peaceful, historically it had involved conflict. The U.S. government’s war with the Seminoles of Florida had ended just four years before the war with Mexico began. A number of regulars and volunteers sent to Mexico had fought against Native Americans. The view of Indians from both inside and outside the military seemed to conform to the prevailing view of race; they were a savage people, who relied on nature for their wants, lived in the wild, and had no real religion or government. As such, they remained, in the minds of Caucasian Americans, a lesser people. The Mexican Indians certainly met that negative image of a backward race to some observers. Others, however, expressed the belief that Mexico’s indigenous people, especially those in Mexico’s central valley, had achieved a high level of civilization prior to the arrival of Cortes, and it had been only after the conquest, under the oppression of the Catholic Church and Spanish rule, that they had become degraded. The vast number of pureblood indigenous Mexican Indians lived outside the nation’s large cities and towns, largely unaffected by the war. Not all Indians encountered by Euro-Americans during the war were Mexican. Nor, did they always fit the image of a degraded people. Wrote Henry of his encounter with two Lipan Apache chiefs near Corpus Christi, “They were magnificent specimens of the Indian race; tall, huge frames, with muscles well developed, and with open, fearless countenances, they appeared,

44

Race and Republicanism

in every particular, warriors of the desert.”42 Troops traveling from Kansas to New Mexico and beyond encountered Indians on the plains and in the southwest and lavished praise on those they came across. The Indians seen by James S. Brown appeared to be well advanced, as he noted, “We crossed the Kaw River [in Kansas] about the 17th of August, [1846,] being ferried over in flat boats by some half civilized Delaware and Shawnee Indians . . . The Indians had good crops of corn and watermelons, and knew as well as white men how to charge for them. These Indians were an intelligent-looking people, having log cabins for dwellings.”43 Note that Brown credited these Indians with four hallmarks of advanced civilization: transportation, agriculture, commerce, and housing. Colonel William S. Harney accepted a short-lived spy company of Delaware Indians living around San Antonio, Texas, commanded by Captain Black Beaver.44 The Pueblo Indians of New Mexico received a much harsher review for their role in the Taos Revolt of 1847. Lewis Garrard, a veteran trapper and trader who helped crush the rebellion that claimed the life of Governor Charles Bent, stated unequivocally that the Pueblos were upset at the “Mericans” and “as Injun blood is bad an’ ‘sneakin’, they swore to count coups when they could.”45 Many Americans shared Lewis’s opinion of the Indians as an untrustworthy race. According to some white American diarists in northern Mexico, residents there viewed the troops occupying the region as an effective bulwark against traditional Comanche raids.46 Why does this examination of racial theory held by U.S. soldiers in the Mexican War matter when it is well established by our standards that their beliefs and actions were racist? The point is that to Euro-Americans soldiers, race was more than skin color. Euro-Americans believed that their god, a Protestant Christian God, had blessed them with the opportunity to inhabit a new land. That a divinely sanctioned racial caste system existed in the world that justified their contention that they be the masters of the North American continent. Indeed, the United States had already accomplished God’s vision by becoming a model of industry and virtue. Therefore, religion directly connected to government. As Protestant Christians, religious free will determined their future in the afterlife. As citizens of the first federal republic of the modern era, elections (civic free will ) formed the foundation of self-government and individual freedom. Euro-Americans not only believed in the one true religion, they believed that they had adopted the one true government. As both Christians and republicans, God’s mission was for them to recreate the world in their image, a view that justified the subjugation of lesser races. Thus, the ideology of Manifest Destiny was both religious and civic in origins. Hence, it fell to white Euro-Americans to serve as its agents in the Mexican War.

Notes 1 William B. Campbell, “Mexican War Letters of Col. William Bowen Campbell, of Tennessee, Written to Governor David Campbell, of Virginia, 1846–1847,” Tennessee Historical Magazine 1 (June 1915): 150. 2 Richard Bruce Winders, Mr. Polk’s Army: The American Military Experience in the Mexican War (College Station: Texas A & M Press, 1997), Preface. 3 William Channing Woodbridge, A System of Universal Geography (Hartford: John Beach, 1836), 165– 168; Samuel Augustus Mitchell, A System of Modern Geography, Comprising a Description of the Present State of the World (Philadelphia: Thomas, Copperthwaite & Co., 1845), 42–43. 4 Samuel Augustus Mitchell, Mitchell’s Primary Geography, An Easy Introduction Into the Study of Geography: Designed of the Instruction of Children in Schools and Families (Philadelphia: Thomas, Copperthaite & Co., 1845), 154–156, 169; Mitchell, A System of Modern Geography, 44. 5 Mitchell, Primary Geography, [On Religion] 154–62, [On Government] 157–159; Mitchell, A System of Modern Geography, [On Religion] 45, 48–50, [On Government] 46–48. 6 John H. Jenkins, ed., The Papers of the Texas Revolution, 10 vols. (Austin: Presidial Press, 1973), 3:129. 7 Telegraph and Texas Register, March 12, 1836. The Alamo Collection. PTR, 3:191, 195.

45

Richard Bruce Winders 8 Richard B. Winders, Crises in the Southwest: The United States, Mexico, and the Struggle Over Texas (Wilmington: Scholarly Resources Inc., 2002), 49–62. 9 J. Jacob Oswandel, Notes of the Mexican War, 1846–47–48 (Philadelphia: n.p., 1885), 336. 10 By then the term Texian had been superseded by the word Texan. 11 House of Representatives, Thirtieth Congress, 1st Session, Ex. Doc. No. 60. Mexican War Correspondence: Messages of the President of the United States (Washington, D.C.: Wendell and Van Benthuysen, Printers, 1848), 430. 12 Charles D. Spurlin, Texas Volunteers in the Mexican War (Austin: Eakin Press, 1998), 103–104; Jonathon W. Buhoup, Army of the Central Division, or the Army of Chihuahua (Pittsburg: M. P. Morse, Publisher, 1847), 107–109. 13 Winders, Mr. Polk’s Army, 167–185. See Chapter 9, “The Land of the Montezumas,” for a detailed account of soldiers’ reactions to Mexico and Mexicans. 14 Ibid., Chapters 2, 4, & 5 provide information on the prewar and Mexican War military establishment. 15 U.S. War Department, General Regulations for the Army of the United States of America (Washington, DC: J. and O. S. Gideon Printers, 1841), 121. 16 Thomas Henderson, Hints on the Medical Examination of Recruits for the Army (Philadelphia: J. Lippincott, 1856), 31–33. 17 Ibid. 18 The American’s Guide: Comprising the Declaration of Independence, the Articles of Confederation, the Constitution of the United States, and the Constitutions of the Several States Composing the Union. (Philadelphia: Hogan & Thompson, 1845), 144, 149, 233, 283, 296, 325, and 398. The use of the term Afro-American was chosen owing to the geographical origins of the African race. 19 Winders, Mr. Polk’s Army, 60–61. 20 Robert Ryal Miller, The Shamrock and the Sword: The Saint Patrick’s Battalion in the U.S.-Mexican War (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1989), 150. 21 Ibid., 122. 22 Robert E. May, “Invisible Men: Blacks and the U.S. Army in the Mexican War,” The Historian 49, No. 4 (August 1987): 463–477. May’s article is a must for anyone interested in this subject. 23 William Seaton Henry, Campaign Sketches of the War With Mexico (New York: Harper & Brothers, Publishers, 1847), 32. 24 Henry, Campaign Sketches, 36. 25 Ibid., 73–74. 26 Amy S. Greenberg, A Wicked War: Polk, Clay, Lincoln, and the 1846 U.S. Invasion of Mexico (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2012), 162. 27 John Frost, The Mexican War and Its Heroes (Philadelphia: Lippincott, Grambo & Co., 1850), 188. 28 Harold D. Langley, “The Negro in the Navy and Merchant Service, 1798–1860,” The Journal of Negro History 52, No. 4 (October 1967): 273–286. Langley’s article remains the most detailed examination of this topic to date. 29 D.E. Livingston Little., ed., The Mexican War Diary of Thomas D. Tennery (Norman: University of Oklahoma, 1981), 37–38. 30 Samuel J. Watson, Peacekeepers and Conquerors: The Army Officer Corps on the American Frontier, 1821–1848 (Lawrence: University of Kansas, 2013), 301–304. Watson contends officers of the regular army based their opinion of Mexicans on their notions of class, an idea that still fits the racial theory described herein. 31 William Goetzmann, ed., “Our First Foreign War: Letters of Barna Upton,” American Heritage 17 (1966): 92. 32 Allan Peskin, ed., Volunteers: The Mexican War Journals of Private Richard Coulter and Sergeant Thomas Barclay, Company E, Second Pennsylvania Infantry (Kent: Kent State University Press, 1991), 181. 33 Eba Anderson, Lawton, ed., An Artillery Officer in the Mexican War, 1846–47: Letters of Robert Anderson, Captain 3rd Artillery, U.S.A. (Freeport: Books for Libraries Press, 1971), 237. 34 Peskin, ed., Volunteers, 181. 35 Ann Fears Crawford, ed., The Eagle: The Autobiography of Santa Anna (Austin: State House Press, 1988), xiv. For an overview of centralist philosophy, see Michael P. Costeloe, “Federalism to Centralism in Mexico: The Conservative Case for Change, 1835–36,” The Americas 45, No. 2 (October 1988): 173–185. 36 Waddy Thompson, Recollection of Mexico (New York: Wiley & Putnam, 1846), 58. 37 Lorenzo de Zavala, Journey to the United States of North America, trans. Wallace Woolsey (Austin: Shoal Creek Publishing, 1980), 212.

46

Race and Republicanism 38 Raphael Semmes, Memoirs of Service Afloat (Baltimore: Kelly, Piet & Co., 1868), 67–68; American Star (Puebla, Mexico), July 25, 1847. 39 Peskin, Volunteers, 181–182. 40 Henry, Campaign Sketches, 73. 41 University of Texas at Arlington, Special Collections, Andrew Jackson Trussel to John Trussel, May 5, 1848, Trussel Family Papers, Box GA, 66–64. 42 Henry, Campaign Sketches, 31. 43 James S. Brown., Life of a Pioneer: Being the Autobiography of James S. Brown (Salt Lake City: George Q. Cannon & Sons Company, Printers, 1900), 33. 44 Charles D. Spurlin, Texas Volunteers in the Mexican War (Austin: Eakin Press, 1998), 68, 243–244. 45 Michael McNierney, ed., Taos 1847: The Revolt in Contemporary Accounts (Boulder: Johnson Publishing Company, 1980), 28. 46 Brian DeLay, War of a Thousand Deserts: Indian Raids and the U.S.-Mexican War (New Haven:Yale University Press, 2008), 263. Although an outstanding work, DeLay included little mention of the American reaction to Comanche raids in northern Coahuila.

47

This page intentionally left blank

PART II

All for the Union or All for Dixie? Minority Service throughout the Civil War and Reconstruction

This page intentionally left blank

4 THE DEBATE BEFORE THE FIGHT Black Northerners and the Question of Enlistment Brian Taylor

On January 1, 1863, President Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation announced that black soldiers could enlist in the Union Army. The subject of numerous historical works, from Dudley Taylor Cornish’s The Sable Arm to James McPherson’s The Negro’s Civil War and beyond, and one major motion picture, Glory (1989), black military service during the Civil War remains a fertile field of historical inquiry.1 Perhaps less well known and examined are the debates black men conducted about enlistment, or that black enlistment was the result of debate among black men at all. Large-scale African American service to the Union seems like a foregone conclusion, as it makes logical sense that black men would leap at the opportunity to battle Confederate forces determined to protect the peculiar institution. From the war’s outset, however, black Northerners debated whether and under what conditions they should fight if the Union eventually sought their enlistment, as many believed it would.2 In their debates, black Northerners—who, unlike enslaved Southerners, could freely and publicly discuss the war and their place in it—drew on their historical assessments of the republic’s failure to reward past generations of African American veterans to articulate a “politics of service” that predicated black enlistment on expanded black rights and citizenship. This political position did not ultimately govern black men’s decisions to enlist, but it influenced and aided their continued pursuit of racial justice throughout the nation’s bloodiest conflict, and remains critical to understanding how black enlistment in the Union Army happened.3 The African American soldiers who fought in the Civil War were not the first black men to fight for the United States. They had fought in the American Revolution and War of 1812, and did so while the expansion of Southern slavery continued. Though free thanks to slavery’s post-Revolutionary Northern demise, Northern blacks faced disenfranchisement and a myriad of discriminatory laws throughout much of the region.4 Antebellum black Northerners venerated their ancestors’ service, frequently invoking it when they met publicly to demand rights and citizenship, and they fumed over the fact that the government had not rewarded that service properly.5 Delegates to an 1851 Ohio black convention asked pointedly whether their ancestors’ Revolutionary service had not given them “a just claim to the same rights with [whites]?”6 Black abolitionist Robert Purvis framed the question even more starkly: was it African Americans’ permanent fate, he asked, “to be looked for in the ‘hour of danger,’ [only to] be trampled under foot in the time of peace?”7 Antebellum black activists also challenged white Americans by identifying as their goal the achievement of ideals that had animated the nation’s founding 51

Brian Taylor

struggle. Black Americans agitated to create, said an 1835 national convention of black leaders, a nation “purified from those iniquitous inconsistencies into which she has fallen by her aberration from first principles” whose laws “cease[d] to conflict with the spirit of that sacred instrument, the Declaration of American Independence.”8 Appeals to black service and American founding principles remained staples of Northern blacks’ antebellum protest rhetoric, but did little to win racial justice. In the 1850s, new federal legislation expanded slavery’s security and potential scope, and the Supreme Court handed down its infamous Dred Scott decision, in which Chief Justice Roger Taney held that African Americans were not American citizens. When the Civil War began, discrimination reigned in the North as did slavery in the South.9 In the 1850s, with slavery and discrimination ascendant, some Northern blacks began to wonder what the United States meant to them, and questioned their allegiance to the nation.10 In 1857, Robert Purvis “rejoice[d]” at the possibility of the nation’s destruction and replacement by a more just polity, calling the United States “one of the basest, meanest, most atrocious despotisms that ever saw the face of the sun . . .”11 By 1859, Frederick Douglass, a former slave turned orator, had concluded that the United States could not legally charge him with treason for his association with John Brown, as his non-citizenship absolved him of any allegiance he might owe the nation.12 Five years earlier, Illinois’ H. Ford Douglas had reached a similar conclusion, saying that his non-citizenship allowed him to fight for a foreign army without violating U.S. law.13 Delegates to an 1858 Ohio black convention absolved themselves of allegiance to the United States, and representatives at a similar 1856 California gathering debated vigorously their proper response were the nation to become involved in a foreign war.14 At the California convention, a W.H. Newby virulently opposed a resolution pledging black service in a future war, declaring that he would welcome an invading army that “provided liberty to me and my people in bondage.”15 Newby and other black Californians’ revulsion at the prospect of fighting for the United States killed the resolution. These defiant statements demonstrated that, as the 1850s progressed, some black Northerners saw the United States in increasingly pessimistic terms, and their willingness to fight for the nation waned. African Americans had for decades affirmed their citizenship, believing that sustained agitation would bring change, but the events of the 1850s eroded their faith that change would come. Accordingly, some began to see their ancestors’ service in previous American wars as a tragic mistake to avoid repeating if asked again to fight for the country: they should not fight for a nation unwilling to do justice by them. The prominent black Bostonian John Rock concluded in 1860 that his Revolutionary ancestors had been brave but misguided, and cautioned black men against “re-commit[ing] the errors of our Revolutionary fathers.” “The Scotch have a saying,” Rock intoned, “ ‘When a man deceives me once, shame on him; but when he deceives me twice, shame on me.’”16 Certainly, not all black Northerners disowned their allegiance to the United States or disavowed any intention to serve the nation in the event of war and yet, as war loomed in the spring of 1861, it remained unclear what attitude they would take toward the coming conflict, let alone what role they would play in it. Following the Confederate attack on Fort Sumter, many Northern blacks eagerly answered President Abraham Lincoln’s call for troops, recognizing that a war pitting the United States against a Confederacy predicated on slavery might change the nation fundamentally.17 White Northerners, however, overwhelmingly opposed black enlistment, and Northern officials refused African American volunteers. Their initial rejection dimmed many black Northerners’ martial spirit for some time. In 1862, when white leaders implored black Cincinnatians to defend the city from an anticipated Confederate attack, the African American educator Peter Clark remembered, their calls went “unheeded” by black men who “remembered their lesson” of the previous year.18 Some black men, however, did not need to experience the sting of rejection to oppose black 52

The Debate before the Fight

enlistment, echoing Rock and Newby’s pre-war comments in opposing fighting for the United States from the war’s start. In May 1861, a “J.H.W.” of Chillicothe, Ohio, publicly criticized local black volunteering efforts, reasoning logically that if black men would willingly serve “the government that despoils them of their rights, it may be concluded that it is quite safe to oppress them.” History taught him to see little hope for African Americans in the war as their service in earlier conflicts had availed them nothing; it “was absurd to suppose that the fact of tendering our services in a domestic war . . . [would] procure a practical acknowledgment of our rights.”19 Following the Union’s rejection of black volunteers, debate raged in the pages of Northern black newspapers and community “war meetings” across the region about whether black men should enlist if given the chance. Black Northerners knew they needed to consider this question, as the history of black service in past wars indicated that white officials would eventually allow them to enlist. They developed three main viewpoints on the question of enlistment. Some, like Frederick Douglass and the Philadelphia lecturer Alfred M. Green, advocated immediate enlistment, urging black men to enlist whenever possible, trusting that their timely service would bring positive change.20 Others followed “J.H.W.” in opposing enlistment entirely, like “R.H.V.,” who engaged in extended public debate with Green on the question of enlistment in late 1861.21 Referring to the fact that black soldiers in past wars had not received justice, R.H.V. asked black Northerners whether “the satisfaction of again hearing a casual mention of our heroic deeds upon the fields of battle, by our own children, doomed for all we know to the same inveterate heart-crushing prejudice that we have come up under” would be enough to inspire their enlistment. If black men “let [their] own heart[s] answer this question,” R.H.V. concluded, “no regiments of black troops will leave their bodies to rot upon the battle-field beneath a Southern sun.”22 Many others staked out a middle position, thinking strategically about the opportunity the war presented and reasoning that their best course might be to delay enlistment until federal officials granted them certain concessions. These men knew they could only ensure that their service would win positive gains if they set certain conditions as the price of that service. Henry Cropper, who captained a Philadelphia black militia company, denied in May 1861 that his unit, the Frank Johnson Guards, had volunteered in Fort Sumter’s aftermath, but stated that he and his comrades might fight if they could do so “on equality with all other men . . .”23 In statements like Cropper’s, Northern blacks publicly outlined the conditions that could induce them to enlist, developing during the war’s early years a “politics of service” that called for fundamental change in return for black enlistment. Black Northerners’ politics of service typically linked enlistment with government recognition of black rights, manhood, equality, and citizenship, in some combination. In August 1862, the Christian Recorder, a Philadelphia-based African Methodist Episcopal newspaper, held that black men had little enthusiasm for volunteering as matters stood, but pledged their support and enlistment when they could fight “as citizens of the United States” with “the rights of men . . .”24 Reverend Henry Highland Garnet insisted that same month that thousands of black men would enlist “whenever they are called as free citizen soldiers . . .”25 Heated debate about the question of service broke out at a Philadelphia war meeting in August, and many attendees who supported enlistment did so only conditionally. Even Alfred M. Green, previously a leading exponent of immediate enlistment, counseled black men to enlist only “whenever the rights of citizenship and equal privileges in common with other soldiers in the army and navy of the United States, are awarded to them.”26 Many black Northerners were determined not to repeat their forefathers’ mistakes by fighting without an assurance from government officials that they would receive justice in return for their service. As a “J.C.J.” told the Pacific Appeal, San Francisco’s African American newspaper, black troops had fought under Andrew Jackson in the War of 1812 and only “rivet[ed] the chains of slavery tighter” upon their brethren. Recalling this outrage, he 53

Brian Taylor

counseled black men not to enlist “in the [present] degraded condition of things, looked upon as goods and chattels,” but to fight if they could do so as “men, enjoying all the political rights and privileges of other men.”27 In the war’s first years, many black Northerners embraced the politics of service, but no consensus regarding enlistment existed, as some still opposed service entirely and others counseled immediate enlistment. Black enlistment remained such a controversial topic that a planned July 1862 war meeting in Washington, D.C., ended in violence when the trustees of Asbury Church, its planned venue, tried to prevent the meeting from taking place.28 In developing a politics of service in the war’s first months and years, black Northerners demanded positive change somewhat vaguely, seldom detailing the concrete legal changes that would satisfy their demands, but made clear that a nation remade to match American founding principles remained their ultimate goal. In October 1862, an “E.R.J.” articulated the politics of service in fairly typical fashion in the Pacific Appeal. E.R.J. believed the Union would have to enlist black men to win the war. They would only serve, however, if the government “turn[ed] from the error of [its] ways and d[id] justice to [African Americans] . . .” Only then, he said, would black men “feel a national pride and glory for a Free Union, as it should be. Then we will have a home and birthright in a free land for ourselves and children, and we will pledge our highest vow to strive to make the Union what it ought to be . . . ”29 E.R.J.’s words typified the politics of service in two ways. First, he demanded change without enumerating the specific legal measures necessary for the nation to meet his standard of “justice.” This lack of specificity ran throughout much, though not all, of black Northerners’ politics-of-service-influenced rhetoric. Their statements typically appealed to concepts—“justice”, “freedom”, “equality,” “rights,” even “citizenship,” the bounds of which the Constitution left quite unclear at the time—whose meaning likely seemed self-evident, but which in fact left much room for interpretation. Secondly, E.R.J. identified a new Union, a Union made “as it should be . . . what it ought to be,” as the goal black men sought. Black Northerners did not want to save the Union for its own sake, but in saving it remake it in accordance with founding American principles, to make the nation what it should have been all along. Most troubling for African Americans seeking a new republic was the Union’s hesitance to openly embrace emancipation in its struggle to subdue the Confederacy. Of course, in 1861 and 1862, Union officials enacted many important anti-slavery measures and policies, embracing military emancipation as early as August 1861, but they also resisted calls for slavery’s abolition. Lincoln and other Union decision-makers grew in their willingness to openly make war on slavery as the war dragged on and eventually took direct aim at the institution, but the anti-slavery measures they took early in the war looked like half-measures to many contemporary black observers, welcome policies that would emancipate individual slaves but ultimately leave slavery intact. Additionally, Union officials often seemed hostile toward slaves and black freemen. Federal commanders offered to put down slave rebellions and sometimes returned fugitive slaves to their masters, Lincoln cancelled two high-profile emancipatory orders issued by Union generals and, at a meeting with Washington, D.C., black leaders in August 1862, the president blamed the war on African Americans and suggested colonizing them to solve the nation’s racial issues.30 Moreover, slavery persisted in the loyal Border States, and racial discrimination continued unabated throughout the North. By the end of 1862, it seemed to many black Northerners that wartime pressures had compelled Union officials to adopt some significant but ultimately conditional anti-slavery policies that had not changed the United States fundamentally, and many remained unwilling to fight for a Union that resembled its antebellum incarnation. In February 1863, even Frederick Douglass seemed to embrace the politics of service and contemplated delaying black service until justice came with it: black men’s enlistment, he told an audience at New York City’s Cooper Union, “depend[ed] upon the white men of the country” giving black men “fair play.”31 54

The Debate before the Fight

Compelled by the pressures of the war, the Union openly adopted both large-scale emancipation and black enlistment as policy by the start of 1863, imparting a newfound urgency to black Northerners’ debates about enlistment in 1863’s first months.32 Frederick Douglass quickly returned to the immediate-enlistment fold, issuing his appeal “Men of Color, to Arms!” in April 1863, and urging black men to forgo immediate equality and win long-term gains through their service.33 Most African American leaders, even those who had once counseled delaying enlistment, in early 1863 adopted this stance. Many became recruiters working for George Stearns, a wealthy white abolitionist tapped to lead black recruiting efforts by Massachusetts governor John Andrew, who had received authorization from the War Department to raise African American regiments. As part of Stearns’s network, men like Douglass, Henry Highland Garnet, the former slave and orator William Wells Brown, and the lawyer John Mercer Langston crisscrossed the Northern states to secure volunteers for the first Northern black regiments, speaking at community war meetings and making public appeals for enlistment.34 These recruiters had to develop nuanced rhetorical arguments capable of overcoming black Northerners’ objections to service. Years later, John Mercer Langston remembered that because the Union’s initial rejection of African American volunteers had led many black men to harbor “feeling[s] against taking any part as soldiers in the war,” much of his work consisted of making “cautious, truthful statements . . . with such candor and appeal as to create after meeting [black men’s] prejudices, favorable and effective impressions [regarding enlistment].”35 In early 1863, black recruiters knew that black soldiers would not enjoy the same access to promotion as white troops and that Confederate authorities might treat African American prisoners of war (POWs) as criminals, but they believed that in the day-to-day terms of black troops’ service—that is, in pay, rations, clothing, and other like concerns—they would enjoy basic equality with white soldiers. Black recruiters emphasized this equality, tried to explain away Union promotion and Confederate POW policies, and presented the war as a fleeting opportunity to achieve justice.36 They urged black Northerners to think pragmatically, insisting that enlisting immediately in hopes of winning long-term gains was a sounder strategy than waiting until the government met all of their demands. African American recruiters also cited Attorney General Edward Bates’s decision of the previous December, which had affirmed black citizenship.37 Bates’s definition of citizenship was narrow, and did not entail political rights or equality in rights between citizens; still, the nation’s highest legal authority had affirmed black citizenship, and African American recruiters urged black men to heed this and other signs of progress and enlist. The cadre of black recruiters that formed in early 1863 marshaled some impressive arguments for immediate enlistment, but many Northern blacks remained determined to delay their enlistment until the government granted them certain terms. At a New York City war meeting in April 1863, a Robert Johnson struck back at Frederick Douglass’s insulting depictions of those who had not yet enlisted, “convinc[ing] the meeting that it was not cowardice which made the young men hesitate to enlist, but a proper respect for their own manhood. If the Government wanted their services, let it guarantee to them all the rights of citizens and soldiers,” Johnson demanded, and his remarks met with “tremendous and long-continued applause.”38 Johnson echoed a committee of black Michiganders who in January 1863 pledged to enlist when their state legislature voided state laws discriminating on the basis of color, remaining unwilling “to serve a State while it concedes all that is due to others and denies much, if not the most, that is due to us.”39 As late as August 1863, Frisby J. Cooper of Wilmington, Delaware, asserted that black Delawareans had little enthusiasm for fighting but would enlist if assured “all of the rights and immunities of a bonafide citizen of these United States, in common with other citizens, irrespective of color, cast, or condition . . .”40 This opposition to immediate enlistment frustrated immediate-enlistment advocates during 1863’s early months. J.W.C. Pennington, a Black 55

Brian Taylor

minister, lamented the “shy fighting in regard to the war question” he observed in Poughkeepsie, New York, while black recruiter, Thomas H.C. Hinton, decried the “colored copperheads” of Washington, D.C., who jeered at black conscripts.41 Through at least August 1863, after African American troops had fought in several high-profile engagements, and after the 54th Massachusetts had made its famous assault on Fort Wagner, some Northern blacks continued to oppose enlistment until the government met their requirements for service. Ultimately, though, roughly eighty percent of black Northerners who hailed from states in which slavery had been abolished before the war enlisted, doing so under terms that blatantly violated the politics of service: they enlisted while slavery and discriminatory laws continued in force, and black soldiers labored under degrading service inequalities that included, starting in June 1863, receiving less monthly pay than white soldiers.42 Edward Bates’s affirmation of black citizenship was significant, but it had not granted African Americans new rights nor legal equality, both of which they had demanded time and again. Why, then, did black Northerners embrace immediate enlistment in mid-to-late 1863? Unfortunately, those who changed their minds about enlistment did not publicly explain their reasoning. We may speculate, though, that several factors convinced them to enlist despite the indignities they continued to suffer in and out of the Union Army. Some likely saw Bates’s opinion as progress enough to justify enlistment; black recruiters surely changed some minds; Union officials’ refusal to back down from the Emancipation Proclamation probably inspired newfound hope in the Union cause; black troops’ courageous battlefield performance, and the praise it inspired from white officers and newspapermen, perhaps convinced some that black service could bring change; and, lastly, black men’s newfound liability to conscription from March 1863 forward may have convinced many to enlist on their own terms rather than await the draft’s results. In any case, in the fall of 1863 dissension from the immediate-enlistment position died off noticeably in the Northern black press, and so it seems that some combination of the above-mentioned factors inspired black Northerners to enlist. The war’s sheer enormity, and the limited but significant progress they had already seen, persuaded black Northerners that a Union victory might fundamentally change the nation, bringing it into line with founding American principles. By mid-1863, black Northerners could feel that, as S.T. Johnson of Pennsylvania explained to the Weekly Anglo-African, “forbearance [had] cease[d] to be a virtue,” because black men could fight “as associates in the foundation of a new republic whose watchword shall be Liberty.” They had come to believe that by serving they could, in the words of California’s W.H. Hall, help the “generation of ’63 . . . return to that sublime doctrine of ’76, which so freely disseminated the germs of liberty to all mankind.”43 With Northern black troops in the vanguard, nearly two hundred thousand black soldiers and sailors served the United States by war’s end, most of them as part of the United States Colored Troops, established when Union officials institutionalized black enlistment by founding the Bureau of Colored Troops under the aegis of the War Department in May 1863.44 Historians have rated highly the contributions these black troops made to Union victory: large-scale black enlistment began just as white enlistment flagged in the spring and summer of 1863, and black troops played critical roles as combat and garrison troops, disrupting Southern society through their very presence on Southern soil.45 In light of this large-scale black enlistment, what do we make of the politics of service and black Northerners’ debates over enlistment? Does the fact that some contemplated withholding their service until the government met certain conditions matter in light of the fact that—in, one might argue, a repeat of their ancestors’ conduct in earlier American wars—black men fought for the United States despite the myriad forms of racial oppression and discrimination that persisted? Although the politics of service did not ultimately govern their conduct regarding enlistment, it remains significant in several ways. First, the intense debates that black Northerners conducted 56

The Debate before the Fight

about the correct strategy to pursue regarding enlistment shows that large-scale African American enlistment was no foregone conclusion. Black enlistment represented the culmination of an uneven process of debate and rejoinder whose conclusion was not foreordained. Black Northerners joined the Union Army as the result of individual decisions, following careful community debate, that fighting for the Union could fundamentally change the United States for the better. In developing and articulating their politics of service and debating enlistment, they demonstrated a deep sense of self-worth and a savvy determination to use military service strategically to achieve long-sought goals. The story of black soldiers’ Civil War service is simply incomplete without an appreciation for the debate that preceded it. Examining black Northerners’ debates about enlistment also highlights the importance of civil-society institutions to Northern victory. Although oppressed, black Northerners, unlike enslaved Southern blacks, possessed public institutions—churches, debating societies, newspapers, state and national convention movements —through which they could discuss matters of national and community importance. In these forums, and in their conversations and correspondence with white officials about enlistment, black Northerners articulated to both themselves and white Northerners how their enlistment in the Union Army could be achieved, constructing a conceptual framework for what black service might look like.46 Their politics of service showed white Northern officials that only the promise of fundamental change could compel them to fight and, by 1863, Union officials had apparently done enough to make fundamental change seem possible, although they had not met black demands entirely. Seen in this light, black Northerners’ debates were a key part of the process by which the United States made its black population an element of military strength in its war effort, something the Confederacy never accomplished; Southerners’ feeble efforts to enlist slaves began late in the war and resulted in no more than a handful of recruits.47 Neither did the politics of service cease when Northern blacks stopped debating enlistment; rather, its terms changed as black men enlisted in large numbers. Black troops and civilians drew on their earlier debates and shifted their protest strategically, demanding change on the basis of African American soldiers’ service. In stern and striking language, black soldiers, especially those enlisted in the first black Northern regiments, demanded the nation do justice to black soldiers by equalizing their pay and ending other service inequalities. In July 1864, J.H. Hall of the 54th Massachusetts insisted publicly that the government make good on its recruiters’ promises of equal pay. “The educated negro does not enter into contracts without knowing what recompense he is to receive or is promised for his services,” he wrote, and vowed that he and his comrades would “prosecute the matter” when they returned from the field. Hall answered the fear that underlay black protests against Union pay policy—that the Union’s refusal to pay African American soldiers equal wages might serve as prelude to the government’s continued denial of black equality in the war’s aftermath—by asserting that he and his comrades would not “tamely submit to the infliction of wrongs most foul, as did our forefathers . . .”48 Black Northerners on the home front protested in like manner, and in the war’s final years, black Northern civilians employed politics-of-service-derived rhetoric to oppose service inequalities and home-front discrimination, as in black Philadelphians’ well-known campaign for railcar desegregation.49 The politics of service also influenced black protest rhetoric in the war’s aftermath. First, it seems fair to speculate that African American soldiers who hailed from the North, whose letters protesting service inequalities proved they remained as unafraid to speak publicly for racial justice while enlisted as they had been in civilian life, transmitted their arguments regarding the link between service and racial justice to the recent ex-slaves they fought alongside. It may well be, then, that the strident demands for rights and citizenship black Southerners made postwar derived at least partially from slaves-turned-soldiers’ interactions with free-born black Northern 57

Brian Taylor

soldiers.50 In any case, the politics of service survived into the postwar period demonstrably in black leaders’ frequent use of black service as justification for expanded rights and equality. As a convention of black veterans put it in 1867, “the colored soldiers and sailors who fought to subdue the rebellion” deserved “equality of rights with the white soldiers who also fought against the armed traitors to the American flag.”51 Rarely did black leaders make political demands during the postwar period without in some fashion using black soldiers’ Civil War service to justify the changes they sought. Congressional Republicans also seized on this justification, framing the postwar constitutional amendments and other Reconstruction measures as just rewards for black soldiers.52 Reconstruction’s well-documented failures notwithstanding, African Americans did parlay their wartime service into government recognition not only of black citizenship but, eventually, of black voting and civil rights as well. It is hard to imagine that these advances—which did indeed fundamentally remake the United States in their departure from antebellum racial practices— would have come if black men had not, from the war’s start, impressed upon Northern officials that only fundamental change could inspire their service. Although the politics of service that black Northerners developed during the Civil War’s early years did not ultimately govern their decisions regarding enlistment, it allowed them to articulate, both to themselves and to the white politicians whose help was necessary in attaining the goals they sought, the changes they wanted their service to bring. Black Northerners’ politics of service thus played an important, if often unrecognized, role in achieving the postwar expansions of black rights and citizenship status that, though undermined for nearly a century, remained for later generations of African Americans to seize on as they continued the struggle to harmonize American reality with American founding principles.

Notes 1 On black service, generally see, Ira Berlin, Joseph P. Reidy, and Leslie S. Rowland, Freedom: A Documentary History of Emancipation, 1861–1867, Series II: The Black Military Experience (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982); Dudley T. Cornish, The Sable Arm: Negro Troops in the Union Army, 1861–1865 (New York: W.W. Norton, 1966); James M. McPherson, The Negro’s Civil War: How American Negroes Felt and Acted During the War for the Union (New York: Vintage, 1965); John David Smith “Let Us All Be Grateful That We Have Colored Troops That Will Fight” in Black Soldiers in Blue: African American Troops in the Civil War Era, ed. John David Smith (Chapel Hill and London: University of North Carolina Press, 2002), 1–64; John David Smith, Lincoln and the U.S. Colored Troops (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 2013); Noah Andre Trudeau, Like Men of War: Black Troops in the Civil War, 1862–1865 (Boston: Little, Brown, 1998). 2 This study defines as “Northern” all states that did not secede. Maryland, Kentucky, Missouri, Delaware, and Washington, D.C., could, of course, easily be considered as Southern, given their geographical location, commitment to slavery, and the pro-Confederate sympathies large portions of their populations harbored. The more important point for this study, however, is that members of black communities in these states corresponded frequently with Northern black newspapers throughout the war, showing that they considered themselves part of a larger Northern black community that remained loyal to the Union and were willing to debate whether or not black men ought to enlist in the Union Army. 3 For a further discussion of this, see Brian Taylor, “A Politics of Service: Black Northerners’ Debates Over Enlistment in the American Civil War,” Civil War History 58, No. 4 (December 2012): 451–480. 4 On black service in the American Revolution, see Philip S. Foner, Blacks in the American Revolution (Westport: Greenwood Press, 1976); Sylvia Frey, Water from the Rock: Black Resistance in a Revolutionary Age (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1991); Alan Gilbert, Black Patriots and Loyalists: Fighting for Emancipation in the War for Independence (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2012). On black service in the War of 1812, see James O. Horton and Lois E. Horton, In Hope of Liberty: Culture, Community and Protest Among Northern Free Blacks, 1700–1860 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997), 183–185; Robert Mullen, Blacks in America’s Wars: The Shift in Attitudes from the Revolutionary War to Vietnam (New

58

The Debate before the Fight

5

6

7

8

9 10 11 12 13 14

15

16 17 18 19 20 21

22 23 24 25 26

York: Monad Press, 1973), 14–17. On black disenfranchisement and discriminatory legislation in the Northern states during the antebellum period, see Leon Litwack, North of Slavery: The Negro in the Free States, 1790–1860 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1961). See also Paul Finkelmann, “Prelude to the Fourteenth Amendment: Black Legal Rights in the Antebellum North,” Rutgers Law Journal 17 (1985–1986), 415–482. Litwack highlights the discriminatory laws under which black Northerners suffered; Finkelmann shows that in some ways, Northern states expanded black rights in the late antebellum decades. On black Northerners’ pre-Civil War activism, see Horton and Horton, In Hope of Liberty; Stephen Kantrowitz, More Than Freedom: Fighting for Black Citizenship in a White Republic, 1829–1889 (New York: Penguin Press, 2012); Jane H. and William H. Pease, They Who Would Be Free: Blacks’ Search for Freedom, 1831–1861 (New York: Atheneum, 1974); Benjamin Quarles, Black Abolitionists (Cambridge: Da Capo Press, [1969] 1991); Patrick Rael, Black Identity and Protest in the Antebellum North (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2002). “Minutes of the State Convention, of the Colored Citizens of Ohio, Convened at Columbus, January 15th, 16th, 17th and 18th, 1851” in Proceedings of the Black State Conventions, 1840–1865, Volume I, eds. Philip S. Foner and George E. Walker (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1979), 271. Robert Purvis, “Appeal of Forty Thousand Citizens, Threatened With Disfranchisement, to the People of Pennsylvania,” 1837, in Pamphlets of Protest: An Anthology of Early African American Protest Literature, 1790–1860 eds. Richard Newman, Patrick Rael, and Philip Lapsansky (New York: Routledge, 2001), 140. “Minutes of the Fifth Annual Convention for the Improvement of the Free People of Colour in the United States, Held by Adjournments, in the Wesley Church, Philadelphia, from the First to the Fifth of June 1835” in Minutes of the Proceedings of the Negro National Conventions, ed. Howard Bell (New York: Arno Press, 1969), 29. On slavery and sectional political controversies in the 1850s, see Don Fehrenbacher, ed., David Potter, The Impending Crisis: America Before the Civil War: 1848–1861 (New York: Harper & Row, 1976). In this vein, the late 1850s saw some black Northerners embrace emigration outside of the United States to achieve the goals they sought. See Pease and Pease, They Who Would Be Free, 251–276. “Speech by Robert Purvis,” May 12, 1857, in The Black Abolitionist Papers: Volume IV, United States 1847–1858, eds. C. Peter Ripley, ed. (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1991), 364. Frederick Douglass to Readership of Douglass’ Monthly, Douglass’ Monthly, November 1859. Quarles, Black Abolitionists, 228. “Proceedings of a Convention of the Colored Men of Ohio, Held in the City of Cincinnati, On the 23d, 24th, 25th, and 26th Days of November 1858” in Proceedings of the Black State Conventions, 1840–1865,Volume I, eds. Philip S. Foner and George E. Walker (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1979), 333 “Proceedings of the Second Annual Convention of the Colored Citizens of the State of California Held in the City of Sacramento, December 9th, 10th, 11th, and 12th, 1856” in Proceedings of the Black State Conventions, 1840–1865, Volume II, eds. Philip S. Foner and George E. Walker (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1980), 140–144. “Speech of Dr. John S. Rock,” The Liberator, March 16, 1860. For an example of some black Northerners’ enthusiasm for enlistment following Fort Sumter, see “Sentiments of the Colored People of Boston,” The Liberator, April 26, 1861. Peter H. Clark, The Black Brigade of Cincinnati: Being A Report of Its Labors and a Muster-Roll of Its Members; Together With Various Orders, Speeches, etc., Relating to It (Cincinnati: Joseph B. Boyd, 1864), 2–3. J.H.W., “Letter from Ohio,” Pine & Palm, May 25, 1861. See, for instance, Alfred M. Green, “Letter from Pennsylvania,” Pine & Palm, May 25, 1861. Green collected the entirety of his and R.H.V.’s public disagreement over enlistment and published it in 1862. See Alfred M. Green, Letters and Discussions on the Formation of Colored Regiments and the Duty of Colored People in Regard to the Great Slaveholders’ Rebellion, in the United States of America (Philadelphia: Ringwalt and Brown, 1862). R.H.V., “Formation of Colored Regiments,” Weekly Anglo-African, September 28, 1861. Henry Cropper, “Note from Philadelphia,” Pine & Palm, May 25, 1861. “War.—Mobs,” Christian Recorder, August 9, 1862. “An Appeal In Behalf of the Persecuted Colored Citizens of the Free States,” The Liberator, August 22, 1862. John A. Williams and A.M. Green, “Meeting in Relation to Colored Enlistment,” Pacific Appeal, September 27, 1862.

59

Brian Taylor 27 28 29 30

31 32

33 34 35 36

37

38 39 40 41 42

J.C.J. to Editor, Pacific Appeal, August 16, 1862. Henry McNeal Turner, “Washington Correspondence,” Christian Recorder, August 9, 1862. E.R.J., “Liberty Bells are Ringing,” Pacific Appeal, October 4, 1862. On Lincoln and slavery and Northern officials’ early and varying attitudes toward slavery and the Union war effort, see Eric Foner, The Fiery Trial: Abraham Lincoln and American Slavery (New York: W.W. Norton, 2010); James Oakes, Freedom National: The Destruction of Slavery in the United States, 1861–1865 (New York: W.W. Norton, 2013). On Lincoln’s August 1862 meeting with black leaders specifically, see Kate Masur, “The African American Delegation to President Lincoln: A Reappraisal,” Civil War History 56, No. 2 (June 2010): 117–144. “Frederick Douglass at the Cooper Institute—The Proclamation and a Negro Army,” Douglass’ Monthly, March 1863. The black soldiers who began to enlist following the Emancipation Proclamation were not, however, the first black men to fight for the Union. A few black men had enlisted in otherwise all-white regiments, as did the 95th Illinois’ H. Ford Douglass. See H. Ford Douglas to Frederick Douglass, January 8, 1863, The Black Abolitionist Papers, vol. 5, The United States, 1859–1865, ed. C. Peter Ripley (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1992), 167. More well known are the three black regiments that formed in 1863 with something like quasi-official approval, the First Kansas Colored Volunteers, 1st South Carolina Volunteers, and the Louisiana Native Guards. On these regiments, see Berlin et al., Freedom, 37–45. For primary source documents relating to these efforts, see pages 46–73. See also Cornish, 37–84. Lastly, black men served in the Union Navy from the war’s beginning. See Steven J. Ramold, Slaves, Sailors, Citizens: African Americans in the Union Navy (DeKalb: Northern Illinois University Press, 2002). Frederick Douglass, “Men of Color, to Arms!” Douglass’ Monthly, March 1863. Berlin et al., Freedom, 74–75. John Mercer Langston, From the Virginia Plantation to the National Capitol, or, the First and Only Negro Representative from Old Dominion (New York: Arno Press, [1894] 1969), 201. For black recruiters citing day-to-day equality as a reason to enlist, see “Great Meeting in Shiloh Church,” The Liberator, May 22, 1863; Douglass, “Men of Color, to Arms!” For arguments related to Union promotion and C.S.A. POW policies, see “War Meeting in New Bedford,” Anglo-African Weekly, February 28, 1863; “War-Meeting in Chicago,” Anglo-African Weekly, May 2, 1863. For the argument that the chance to serve presented black men with a fleeting opportunity to win racial justice, see “Meeting at the Metropolitan Assembly Room,” Anglo-African Weekly, March 7, 1863; Douglass, “Men of Color, to Arms!” See Edward Bates, Opinion of Attorney General Bates on Negro Citizenship (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1863). On Bates’s opinion, see also Oakes, Freedom National, 357–361; James P. McClure, Leigh Johnsen, Kathleen Norman, and Michael Vanderlan, eds., “Circumventing the Dred Scott Decision: Edward Bates, Salmon P. Chase and the Citizenship of African Americans” in Race and Recruitment, ed. John David Smith (Kent: Kent State University Press, 2013). For black men citing Bates’s decision as a reason to enlist, see “Guerre” to Editor, Christian Recorder, March 7, 1863; Frederick Douglass, “Why Should Colored Men Enlist?” Douglass’ Monthly, April 1863. “Great Meeting in Shiloh Church,” The Liberator, May 22, 1863. “State Central Committee of the Michigan State Convention,” Anglo-African Weekly, March 7, 1863. Frisby J. Cooper to Editor, Christian Recorder, July 25, 1863; Frisby J. Cooper to Editor, Christian Recorder, August 8, 1863; Frisby J. Cooper to Editor, Christian Recorder, August 29, 1863. Thomas H.C. Hinton to Editor, Christian Recorder, August 22, 1863. This figure is based on the data provided by the scholars of the Freedmen and Southern Society Project, which they compiled using 1860 U.S. census data and figures given in the Official Records of the War of the Rebellion delineating how many black troops had been credited to each state. This study, however, defines as Northern all states that did not secede from the Union. Determining the percentage of black men free before the war who enlisted in the states that remained within the Union during the Civil War is problematic because their data does not make clear how or what percentage of black troops from Maryland, Kentucky, Delaware, and Missouri were free before their enlistment, and how many gained freedom as a result of their enlistment. Most of the 954 black soldiers from Delaware would have been free when they enlisted, as the state contained only 289 slaves in 1860. In 1860, Maryland’s free and enslaved black populations were roughly equal, so it seems fair to assume that a substantial portion of the 8,718 black soldiers from that state gained their freedom prior to enlisting. Missouri and Kentucky both had very small free black populations relative to their populations of enslaved black men, making

60

The Debate before the Fight

43 44 45

46

47

48 49

50 51 52

it likely that the vast majority of black soldiers from those states gained their freedom by enlistment. The distinction here is important, because whereas slaves could be motivated to enlist by the desire for personal freedom, free black men did not possess this motive, and thus by their rate of enlistment can we see black Northerners’ eventual overwhelming acceptance of the immediate-enlistment position. See Berlin et al., Freedom, 12. W.H. Hall, “Patriotic Colored Men,” Pacific Appeal, April 25, 1863; S.T. Johnson to Editor, Anglo-African Weekly, April 25, 1863. Smith, Lincoln and the U.S. Colored Troops, 47. William W. Freehling, The South vs. The South: How Anti-Confederate Southerners Shaped the Course of the Civil War (New York: Oxford University Press, 2001), 154; Joseph T. Glathaar, “Black Glory: The African American Role in Union Victory” in Why the Confederacy Lost, ed. Gabor S. Boritt (New York: Oxford Univ. Press, 1992), 133–162. For correspondence between a black leader and government official on the subject of enlistment and black men’s duty to the nation in light of service inequalities, see, for instance, John Mercer Langston to William Seward, June 28, 1863, William Seward Papers, University of Rochester. Available online via the Black Abolitionist Papers online site, http://bap.chadwyck.com/marketing/ Stephanie McCurry, Confederate Reckoning: Power and Politics in the Civil War South (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2010), 310–357. On Confederate attempts to enlist black soldiers at the war’s end, see Bruce Levine, Confederate Emancipation: Southern Plans to Free and Arm Slaves During the Civil War (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006). J.H. Hall to Editor, Christian Recorder, August 27, 1864. On the Philadelphia railcar campaign, see, for instance, “The Enthusiastic Gathering of Colored Persons in Sansom St. Hall,” Christian Recorder, July 30, 1864. See also Judith Giesberg, Army at Home: Women and the Civil War on the Northern Home Front (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2009), 92–118; William Still, A Brief Narrative of the Struggle for the Rights of the Colored People of Philadelphia in the City Railway Cars; and a Defence of William Still, Relating to His Agency Touching the Passage of the Late Bill, etc. Read Before a Large Public Meeting in Liberty Hall, April 8th, 1867 (Philadelphia: Merrihew and Son, 1867). Stephen Hahn, A Nation Under Our Feet: Black Political Struggles in the Rural South, from Slavery to the Great Migration (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2003), 120–126. “Colored Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Convention,” Christian Recorder, January 12, 1867. See for instance, “Speech of Hon. William D. Kelley” in The Equality of All Men before the Law Claimed and Defended; in Speeches by Hon. William D. Kelley, Wendell Phillips, and Frederick Douglass, and Letters from Elizur Wright and Wm. Heighton (Boston: George C. Rand & Avery, 1865), 17; “A Black Brigade,” Elevator, January 31, 1874.

61

This page intentionally left blank

5 WARRIORS OR SOLDIERS? Native American Combatants in the Civil War West Clarissa W. Confer

Civil war unleashes devastating forces on a society, and few experiences are more divisive; however, the experience also creates internal unity. White leaders and combatants in the American Civil War viewed the struggle as a “white man’s war” that excluded minorities. As with previous national wars, minorities would eventually engage in combat, but never on the same terms as whites. Native Americans fought primarily in the Trans-Mississippi Theater, in Indian Territory. They enlisted and fought for their own reasons of kinship, sovereignty, and identity. Their insistence on remaining native within larger majority white armies proved a challenge to everyone involved. The “Five Civilized Nations” (Cherokee, Creek, Choctaw, Chickasaw, and Seminole), removed from the Southeast to Indian Territory in the 1830s, existed as sovereign dependent nations under U.S. authority. Residents controlled their own governments, police forces, and other institutions of stable political and economic life in America. The Office of Indian Affairs served as the indigenous nations’ primary contact with the federal government. Largely ignored by non-Indians in the 1850s, Indian Territory quickly came to the attention of military and political leaders as it lay squarely on the western border of the impending war, surrounded on three sides by states entering the contest (see Map 5.1). So why did these men fight in America’s Civil War? Like most soldiers, members of the Five Nations enlisted for a variety of reasons. Fairly typical motivations may have included a taste for adventure, the economic benefits of military service, peer pressure, or the excitement of wartime mobilization. However, motivations of loyalty, group expectation, defense of homeland, political allegiance, and family ties all have different meanings for members of native nations. All the men from these nations had a level of identity that superseded ideas of North or South, slave or free, Republican or Democrat. They identified with their tribal affiliation. This identity layered over traditional kinship structure and remained embedded in the decisions they made. They acted on loyalties to recognized community leaders rather than to any distant white government. When Cherokee men signed up to fight, they intended to help their chief defend their families and their nation. Similarly, Choctaw soldiers expected to protect their extended kin groups in Choctaw territory from the ravages of any enemy. They accepted the Confederate belief that the Union had become that enemy in 1861. Therefore, Indian men expected to fight with rather than against other members of their nations in defense of their homeland.

63

Historical Atlas of Oklahoma, by John W. Morris, Charles R. Goins, and Edwin C. McReynolds.

Source: Copyright 1965, 1976, 1986 by the University of Oklahoma Press, Norman, Publishing Division of the University. Reproduced with Permission. All rights reserved.

Map 5.1

Warriors or Soldiers?

That ability to fight within units based solely on tribal identity was an important aspect of Confederate service. In 1861, Confederate President, Jefferson Davis, quickly realized the strategic location of Indian Territory. He moved to secure the loyalty of those nations on his western border by sending diplomats armed with attractive offers of allegiance. These Confederate diplomats offered native leaders respect and recognition of their sovereign status. The nations could send delegates to the Confederate Congress, and their men could join the Confederate military in tribally organized units fighting under their own officers. The reality of the offer fell far short of the promises, but the Union never even offered this level of autonomy to native peoples. In 1861, federal officials had not even communicated about the crisis with the Indians supposedly under their protection, making the Confederate offer appear even more attractive. Eventually, Cherokee, Creek, Choctaw, Chickasaw, and Seminole leaders all signed treaties with the Confederacy. Official treaties paved the way for military enlistment. The 1st Chickasaw and Choctaw Mounted Rifles filled quickly primarily due to the enthusiasm and commitment of tribal leaders. Both nations’ leaders embraced the idea of Confederate service but had required that tribal control be an important feature of their participation. Chickasaw and Choctaw men signed up because their leaders asked them to do so. Their loyalty was not to the unknown Jefferson Davis, but to their native nation, kin, and tribal leaders. This model produced the Confederacy’s strongest allies as the Chickasaw and Choctaw remained loyal to the end of the war despite hardships. The other three nations were not so lucky, as internal divisions and divided tribal leadership destroyed their unity. When the motivation to enlist and the commitment to the cause come from internal loyalties, external issues have far less impact than local ones. In the Cherokee Nation, enlistment and military service revolved around internal issues. This tribe divided terribly during the removal crisis in the 1830s. The residual bitterness and divisiveness continued to plague politics in the 1860s. Two rival groups, the acculturated, often mixed-race, wealthy Cherokees contended with the traditional, conservative Cherokees for power in the nation. Stand Watie and John Ross respectively represented these groups in Cherokee politics. When the Confederate offers of allegiance arrived in 1861, Cherokees viewed them through their understanding of identity and loyalty. The rival factions instinctively chose opposing sides and vied for any available power. Chief John Ross and rival Stand Watie understood well the implications of military service. Those who enlisted with the Confederacy gained power and prestige as well as access to guns, rations, and uniforms. An armed body sanctioned by the Confederate States of America (C.S.A.) could be an important asset in the continuing power struggle in the Cherokee Nation. Ross feared two outcomes from the existence of an armed unit—loss of status as a neutral, which he regarded as the Cherokees’ only hope of surviving the war, and the instigation of domestic strife and internal difficulties in the nation.1 While Ross pursued neutrality, Stand Watie and his followers quickly identified with the Confederate cause and corresponding opportunity for power, and so raised a mounted regiment. Now threatened with a shift in the internal power struggle of the nation, Ross also raised a regiment of supporters as soon as the nation signed a Confederate treaty. Clearly, the old chief intended to keep any armed Cherokees under his control, so he appointed his nephew-by-marriage, John Drew, to lead the unit. The creation of a unit of Ross supporters increased the rivalry between them and Watie’s group. They even contended over naming rights for the units.2 The genesis of the Cherokee units, based on tribal loyalties, internal political struggles, and kin ties, charted their future course. Since these were not men necessarily motivated by nor fighting for larger national issues, they did not conform to expected norms. Some of the earliest fighting in Indian Territory involved Confederate pursuit of fleeing loyal Native Americans. When called upon to chase down men, women, and children of the neighboring Creek Nation in the fall of 1861, many Cherokees abandoned the Confederate cause. After the first contact at the Battle of 65

Clarissa W. Confer

Chusto-talasah (Caving Banks) Drew found himself without a regiment. The defection of Drew’s men is not that surprising considering the circumstances. The rank and file Cherokees enlisted out of loyalty to their chief and a belief in his assertion that the borders of their beloved nation must be protected. The 1st Cherokee Regiment formed to combat enemies of the Cherokee Nation, not of the Confederacy. The Creeks posed no immediate threat to the Cherokees and thus did not fall under a strict definition of enemy. Many Cherokees had personal relationships or even kin ties with Creeks as they had been neighbors in Indian Territory for over two decades.3 Some Cherokee tribal members may have been with the pursued group, which would have required firing on kin. While many of Drew’s men refused to take this action, other Cherokees did follow Confederate command. Loyalties were challenged and choices made constantly throughout this conflict. The unsteady relationship between the nations of Indian Territory and the Confederacy continued into 1862, and included a major military engagement. C.S.A. commander Albert Pike marched his native troops to Arkansas to participate in the Battle of Pea Ridge, despite treaty assurances that Indian forces would not leave their nations without their consent. The Indian troops did not go willingly to battle. In the haste to concentrate men against the Union invasion, no one had officially consulted the tribes about fighting outside their territory as required by the 1861 treaties. The orders to march to Bentonville, Arkansas, clearly did not involve a direct threat to Indian homes or families. In addition, the men refused to move without receiving the overdue military wages that their families relied on. Although they eventually moved out, Indians demonstrated little enthusiasm for this trek into Arkansas for a subsequently failed military engagement.4 Indeed, the Choctaw and Chickasaw and Creek regiments lagged behind and missed the Battle of Pea Ridge. Although Cherokee forces successfully took a portion of the battlefield, they retreated in haste after experiencing their first taste of Union artillery. The Cherokee participation at Pea Ridge left a lasting legacy as the Union accused them of “barbarity.” When men asserted that they found Union soldiers scalped and their necks pierced with long knives, the immediate conclusion was to blame the Indians. Contemporary racism drove accusations. The New York Tribune described an “Aboriginal Corps of Tomahawkers and Scalpers” at Pea Ridge. The politically driven Joint Committee of Congress on the Conduct of the War jumped into the fray by publicizing the behavior of the Cherokees who were accused of scalping and mutilating the federal dead. The Confederacy showed no inclination to stand behind its allies in putting down this talk of barbarism and remained silent about any Indian participation in the battle.5 Native leaders regarded this inflammatory talk as racist and detrimental to their relations with both white governments. The C.S.A.’s lack of support for Indian forces in the aftermath of Pea Ridge presaged a disturbing trend. By 1862, the C.S.A. seemed to have lost interest in its native allies. General Earl Van Dorn essentially cut them loose from Confederate operations with a vague mandate to annoy the enemy in Indian country. Most units returned to their nations where they had always intended to be or roamed the interior of the territory.6 If the Federals invaded, they would surely come from the northern or eastern borders, but Confederate commanders remained in the south-central region. This clear lack of support from the C.S.A. caused Cherokee Chief John Ross to rethink his 1861 alliance. He moved to strengthen his position with his Cherokee supporters while distancing himself from the Confederacy. When the 1st Cherokee regiment returned, Ross could provide military protection to the homes and businesses of his followers. He ensured that the proRoss men were armed and authorized to be in a region already harassed by the anti-Ross forces under Watie. When traditional Cherokee soldiers left Drew’s command in 1861 rather than follow other military outfits that did not fit their concept of loyalty, they merely foreshadowed the actions of their chief. The following year when Union forces finally arrived in the Cherokee 66

Warriors or Soldiers?

Nation and offered protection, Chief Ross, and thus the Cherokee Nation, joined the Union cause. However, this change of alliance with external political entities created internal problems in the Indian nations. The internal Cherokee power struggle flourished and while Ross traveled to Washington, D.C., to convince the Lincoln Administration of his nation’s loyalty, his enemies proclaimed rival Stand Watie as Cherokee chief. The Cherokee Nation’s division brought chaos. John Ross explained to President Lincoln that the Cherokee people were now “in a position fraught with distress, danger and ruin.”7 The North now had native allies in Indian Territory but struggled to embrace them. After many delays the Union planned an expedition into Indian Territory using Union Indian regiments newly formed from refugee populations in Kansas. The general attitude of the Union to its new Indian soldiers is reflected in the actions of their commander, Colonel William Weer, who complained of constant questioning about his intentions on the expedition. He took no interest in inquiries he found “puzzling” and did little to ease the anxiety of his native troops.8 Although he noted a “dread of white men,” Weer still did not recognize the distrust of white involvement in Indian affairs. The mistrust was well-founded. Native men enlisted because they viewed the Union Army as a means to return safely to their homeland; however, the Army had no plan to repatriate the refugee soldiers. 9 Days before the march was to begin, Weer asked his superiors what he should do with the Indians once they reached their country and later complained about “want of instructions as to the Indians.”10 The first Indian Expedition left Kansas in June 1862 with high hopes and bountiful promises. It returned a few months later in disgrace, having achieved neither its military objective of establishing Union control over Indian Territory nor the secondary purpose of returning the native refugees to their homes. The failed Union expedition mirrored the general situation in Indian Territory. The region remained peripheral to major population centers and the most critical strategic plans and thus primary military action of the war. Neither North nor South had any real idea of what to do with their Indian allies, and as military action in Virginia and Georgia increased, Indian Territory fell out of military planning. Perhaps national commanders can be forgiven for overlooking the frontier area. In July 1863, the territory’s largest battle produced seven hundred casualties a few weeks after the horror of forty-six thousand casualties at Gettysburg. But their lack of interest had ramifications for their native allies. The Cherokee Nation now resembled a civil war within the larger civil contest. Ross supporters who had defected to the Union returned to their homes in the Cherokee capital, Tahlequah. Still carrying arms for the Confederacy, Stand Watie’s men remained determined to resist them. Thus, the Cherokees extended the internal political fight of the 1830s into the 1860s. Both groups claimed to be the legitimate Cherokee government, calling on Union or Confederate assistance. This internal conflict wreaked havoc on the Cherokee Nation. Homes burned, men captured, commerce and travel halted—all the earmarks of a civil war. The Creek nation divided along similar lines and suffered greatly. Thousands of traditional Creeks fled to Kansas when Confederate native forces attacked in 1861 and remained trapped there enduring all the tragedies of refugee life. Most longed to return home to their nation, but complex internal hostilities now entangled in Civil War allegiances made it too dangerous. Any who did return faced a destitute situation. South of Cherokee and Creek lands, the Chickasaw and Choctaw remained united behind their tribal leaders and the choice to support the Confederacy. The war did not come to their nations until 1863; when it did, however, it did so in the guise of thousands of native refugees. When the Union established a semblance of control in the northern nations, it led to an exodus of southern supporters. They moved south—directly into the Choctaw and Chickasaw nations. The host nations struggled to handle the human tide. These arrivals were political allies in terms 67

Clarissa W. Confer

of war, and native hospitality patterns dictated a compassionate welcome. On the other hand, these families were not kin. White Americans might view them under the blanket term “civilized Indians,” but that was convenient fiction. The Creeks spoke a similar language, but the Cherokee came from a completely different lineage and language group. Native leaders in the south did what they could, but would not jeopardize their own peoples’ welfare for these new arrivals. Refugees arrived without land, tools, or seeds to grow their own crops. The food shortage became so critical that Choctaw Chief Peter Pitchlynn claimed corn supplies for the sole use of his Choctaw soldiers. Leaders appealed to the Confederacy for help with the crisis. C.S.A. General Maxey reported subsisting thirteen thousand Indians in 1864. Shortages, dislocations, and suffering continued nearly unabated as Indian Territory fell into chaos. Mere survival took precedence over military strategy. These conditions dragged on until the federal government took over in 1865. The war had not been what anyone, anywhere expected, and the Indian soldiers may have been the most disillusioned. The native soldiers had enlisted for their own reasons such as kinship ties or clan loyalty, which coincided only tangentially with those of the larger nations. They remained, to both the Union and Confederacy, outsiders. Neither white-run military establishment embraced native soldiers. Having spent a century fighting against Indians, neither Rebel nor Yankee readily embraced the idea of fighting with them. Only political considerations such as the desire to control native territory, or the loss of fewer valued troops, reconciled white men to the necessity of enlisting Indians. Thus, native soldiers found themselves in an inferior position without the resources or manpower to do more than provide meager guard of their territory. Both armies accepted Indian soldiers reluctantly, and perhaps never came to fully appreciate their service. Although the Confederacy embraced the idea of Indian allies at an early stage, it was the diplomats in Richmond, not the commanders in the field, who saw advantages to native military participation. Field experience entrenched negative perceptions among some commanders, while others offered positive evaluations. Negative images often focused on barbarity and cruelty. The charges of barbarism stemmed from the belief that Indians were inferior, and this idea also supported the evaluation that they made poor soldiers. The words of General William Steele sum up the feeling of many white commanders of native troops. He stated that Indians were “wholly unreliable as troops of the line.” The main complaint seemed to be that these men did not follow orders, and generally disregarded military procedure. Not surprisingly, the issue of discipline caused the most friction between Indian troops and white officials; white commanders believed even Indian officers seemed “indisposed to enforce discipline.”11 One evaluation charged Indian troops with being “almost as destitute of every attribute of a soldier as if they were raw recruits.”12 Much of the antithesis toward Indian soldiers came from a lack of understanding between the two cultures. There is no doubt that rank and file native troops rarely performed drill or fought as units in the way that white and black soldiers did. There is, however, no reason to assume that they would. These troops were barely armed and thrown into regiments; they did not receive military training. In addition, the men from the Five Nations came from a much different background than the average Union or Confederate soldier despite the considerable assimilation that had permeated their lifestyles. As young boys, they grew up admiring great warriors like Tecumseh or Osceola, rather than George Washington. The glory and honor that accrued to native leaders did not come from toughing out a hard winter at Valley Forge or showing bravery in the face of an enemy barrage while marching in formation. It came through quick, decisive raids that accomplished their objective and returned as many unscathed men as possible to their families. It made little sense to them to remain in winter quarters with the knowledge that there would be little fighting until spring or to march across an exposed field when nearby trees provided lifesaving cover. Indian troops had signed up to defend their homes, not to build huts and wait out 68

Warriors or Soldiers?

the winter without their families. As a result, orders to assemble in camps had little effect except to frustrate white officers.13 Another major complaint about native commands was the lack of paperwork. The military functioned on endless inspections, rosters, and reports, but it proved amazingly difficult to get such communication from the commands in Indian Territory. Officers ignored this duty for a variety of reasons, which probably included the tedium of paperwork, illiteracy, lack of supplies, and a general disregard for the importance of records in a traditionally oral culture. However, not all white officers held negative impressions of their Indian soldiers. Those who had experience with native culture and allowed the men to fight as they wished fared much better in their relations with the troops. Even those new to Indian commands had positive experiences. C.S.A General Samuel Maxey commended the Choctaws and Chickasaws for their skill, gallantry, and daring in fighting of their own volition at Poison Springs, Arkansas. He astutely ascribed part of the fighting ferocity to a desire for retribution on the federal troops who had inflicted damage on their nations. Maxey’s understanding of his Indian soldiers convinced him of the wisdom of using the men in raids, although Indian soldiers still spent a lot of time guarding supply lines and securing provisions rather than fighting.14 Indian troops definitely left impressions on observers, whether they were positive or negative. Many whites commented on the unique whooping sounds made by native troops in battle. Union officers at Neosho, Missouri, blamed the screaming and whooping of the Indians for rendering their horses nearly unmanageable. Wiley Britton, who often fought with Union Indian troops, recalled the war whoop that resonated through the woods when the Indian units got underway. Native American soldiers often added traditional warpaint to these characteristic noises. This traditional behavior both emboldened the Indians and terrorized the enemy.15 Regardless of the opinion of Indian troops held by whites, they received poor treatment. Neither Union nor Confederacy adequately supplied their Native American allies. The lack of food, clothing, and arms was the main complaint of officers and enlisted men in Indian units. Every officer who took command found his native troops lacking even basic weapons. Over a thousand men had no arms at all in the Southern Indians’ regiments in 1863. Commanders went to great lengths to procure suitable supplies, only to have them preempted by white units. Native troops on both sides never had the level of weaponry used by their white allies. Native American men who joined the army could expect to go without food or blankets. Even appeals by the chiefs themselves failed to rectify the supply situation in Indian Territory. Additionally, no Indian commands received pay with any regularity, and most were owed more than a year of back pay.16 This brief summary of the conditions of Indian troops—inadequate clothing, poor quality arms, and lack of respect from white commanders—reveals ample cause for native allies on both sides to give up on the war, and desertion certainly did exist among Indian units. Drew’s Cherokee provide the most obvious example, yet they all did not abandon the war, just switched horses mid-race. Stand Watie pointed with great pride to the loyalty of his men in the midst of hardship; he claimed a lower number of desertions than other similar-sized commands, but this probably grew from devotion to his personal leadership, not the Confederate cause.17 On the other hand, Cherokees and Creeks left the Union invasion force of 1862 in large numbers. The frequency of desertion was tied both to inferior command and the poor condition of the home front. Men from both armies left military camps to help refugee families relocate, put in crops, or gather supplies. If they had enlisted to protect their homelands, then ensuring the survival of families was clearly part of that commitment. Both the Union and Confederacy and the Indian national governments themselves were aiding refugee subsistence so individual efforts would not seem out of place. 69

Clarissa W. Confer

Native American soldiers retained an independence unrivaled by white troops. If they did not like the direction or focus of higher command, they did not comply. When white officers led the Union Indian brigade into the Cherokee Nation in 1862 and failed to achieve the goals of the men, to regain their homes, they left the service. This does not mean they would not fight again, but that they no longer believed in the current efforts. When Confederates ordered Choctaw and Chickasaw regiments to Arkansas for the impending Battle of Pea Ridge, they discovered that they had to distribute back pay before native units would agree to march.18 The records of the Indian troops of both armies are very incomplete, but it is still clear that hundreds of native soldiers were listed as deserters every year. The military judged them by its own measures; by its own definition of desertion or official leave. The existing records suggest that perhaps the idea of desertion is open to interpretation. Indian soldiers did not come from a culture dependent on papers and official forms. In fact, most traditional Indians did not read and write English. If their families needed them or camp life became onerous, they rarely considered that they should obtain an official form granting them permission to leave. They just departed and returned later. What the Union and Confederacy regarded as desertion, the men thought of as a long furlough. The records of the Indian Home Guard support this pattern of coming and going from army camps. Though units completed muster rolls only sporadically, they reveal a fluid manpower situation. Artishomity enlisted in the 1st Indian Home Guard in April 1862, declared AWOL by August, materialized again in November, then deserted in February. Cashdoyoulsots from the 3rd Indian Home Guard appears as a deserter four separate times in less than two years. Many men probably did not understand the consequences of staying away from camp too long. Numerous individuals applied for pensions not realizing that the government considered them deserters and thus disqualified for benefits. The service record of Kumsey Yahola lists him as a three-time deserter. He just thought he stayed out a little too long on his furlough (he was gone for months). Later, Yahola admitted that he had been home “a time or two before” to visit his folks. Chesqukerlooyar received a furlough after an illness, but when family crises delayed his return, he was declared a deserter. Native soldiers often relied on relatives or locals for support, which stymied military efforts to keep track of them. Watt Cochran got sick at Cabin Creek and traveled home with his brother without official leave. Runabout Proctor also did not report to the military for medical help, preferring to rely on a Cherokee doctor to care for his wound. Because these soldiers fought at home, they tended to rely on their people for aid and thus fell out of the military reporting system.19 Of course misunderstanding does not account for all the desertions in the Indian regiments. Plenty of men left military service willfully. This unreliability was a constant source of frustration to officers expecting some semblance of military discipline. One officer was driven to remark on a young Cherokee’s record that “If there is no Hell there should be one made for this villain more fierce than the multiplied furies of the infernal reageous. Deserted time & again to give dates would be a stigma on all officers that ever had anything to do with the Company.” In his disgust at the character of this soldier, the officer listed the man’s occupation as “horse thief.”20 Most Indian enlistees were neither model soldiers, nor incorrigible rogues. They served their time in the military fighting a few battles, participating in raids, and trying to relieve the boredom of camp life. As was true of all Civil War soldiers, the Indians’ worst enemy was disease. Typhoid fever and smallpox, for which few Indians were vaccinated, ravaged Native American settlements, both military and civilian, resulting in high mortality rates. Shortages of supplies and the general dearth of food in Indian country weakened many with malnutrition that left them more susceptible to diseases.21

70

Warriors or Soldiers?

Disease, shortages, fighting, refugee life, enemies in the territory, and destruction of homelands describe Indian Territory during the Civil War. The chaos and instability of the war years took years to recover from and unleashed outside forces that drove the Indian nations out of existence. Indian soldiers obviously experienced the war as individuals with varying degrees of success, however, native participation in the larger external conflict widened fissures in the Indian nations that could not be repaired.

Notes 1 Mary Jane Warde, Now the Wolf Has Come: The Civil War and the Indian Territory (Fayetteville: University of Arkansas Press, 2013), 58–59. 2 W. Craig Gaines, The Confederate Cherokees (Baton Rouge: LSU Press, 1989) is a full-length study of Drew’s regiment. 3 Albert Pike, The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1880–1901), (hereafter cited as OR), I, 8:719. 4 Of all the Confederate Indian troops, only Watie’s regiment went to the battle quickly and then fought successfully and guarded the Confederate retreat. Thom Hatch, The Blue, the Gray, and the Red (Philadelphia: Stackpole Books, 2003), 22. 5 Wiley Britton, The Civil War on the Border (New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1890), 275; Annie Heloise Abel, The American Indian in the Civil War, 1862–1865 (Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press, 1992), reprint; originally published as The American Indian as Participant in the Civil War (Cleveland: Arthur Clark Company, 1919), 31, note #65, 33; OR, 1, 8:194, 207, 288, 820. 6 Gaines, The Confederate Cherokees, 91. 7 John Ross to Abraham Lincoln, September 16, 1862, Gary Moulton, Papers of Chief John Ross, vol. II (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1985), 517. 8 Warde, Now the Wolf Has Come, 105. 9 Abel, American Indian in the Civil War, 99, 114; OR 13:365. 10 Jay Monaghan, Civil War on the Western Border (Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press, 1955), 253; OR 13:430; ibid., 487. 11 OR 1, 22:35. 12 Captain B.W. Marston inspection report December 1864, original in Archives Division of the Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge; reprinted in “Confederate Indian Troop Conditions in 1864 in Chronicles of Oklahoma (1963): 446. 13 Ibid., 445. 14 November 6, 1864, #160, Samuel B. Maxey Papers, Thomas Gilcrease Institute of American History and Art, Tulsa, OK; OR, 1,34(1):841; OR, 1,53:963–966. 15 OR, 1, 13:93; Wiley Britton, Memoirs of the Rebellion on the Border, 1863 (Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press, [1882] 1993), 201; W. David Baird, ed., A Creek Warrior for the Confederacy: The Autobiography of Chief G.W. Grayson (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1988), 93–94. 16 Warde, Now the Wolf Has Come, 96. 17 Stand Watie to S.S. Scott, OR, 22(2), 1104–1105. 18 OR, 1, 8:286–292. 19 The muster rolls and reports in the Union army completed by white officers duly reported absent men as deserted or AWOL. In the southern system, which had far more Indian officers, men are referred to as “being on furlough” in officers’ correspondence. Compiled Service Records, National Archives, Washington, DC. 20 Muster Roll, company “F”, 3rd Indian Home Guard Regiment, Oklahoma Historical Society Oklahoma City, OK. 21 Britton, Memoirs, 131, 176; OR, 1, 22(2): 61.I.

71

This page intentionally left blank

6 “WE DID OUR DUTY AS MEN SHOULD” African Americans in the Civil War David Williams

In his first inaugural address of March 1861, President Abraham Lincoln stated flatly that he had “no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with slavery in the States where it exists.” Congress agreed. In a near unanimous vote, it passed the Crittenden-Johnson resolution, assuring the nation that the war was being fought not to overthrow or interfere “with the rights or established institutions” of the slave states but only “to defend and maintain the supremacy of the Constitution and to preserve the Union.”1 Both Lincoln and Congress reflected the attitudes of the vast majority of northern whites, who were far from abolitionists. Though they opposed slavery’s expansion, they had little objection to the institution as long as it remained confined to the South. For the most part, they sought to keep the North a white man’s country while keeping their conflict with the South a white man’s war. Most northern whites, therefore, did not wish to broach the conjoined idea of emancipation or citizenship rights for free blacks. Even so, African Americans assumed ownership of the war from its very beginning. When Lincoln called for volunteers in April 1861, blacks in Boston held a mass meeting at the Twelfth Baptist Church and announced their willingness to “stand by and defend the Government with ‘our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor.’” Even the women were ready to take the field “as nurses, seamstresses, and warriors if need be.” Similar offers came from blacks all over the North. In Providence, some formed a company that sought attachment to the 1st Rhode Island Regiment. In Philadelphia, blacks organized two regiments. A letter arrived on the Secretary of War’s desk from New York announcing that “a black regiment from this city could be put into the field in thirty days.” In Washington, D.C., itself, three hundred free blacks petitioned the War Department to “enter the service for the defence of the City.”2 Nicholas Biddle did not wait for orders. Two days after Lincoln called for volunteers, the sixty-five-year-old former slave stepped off with his white neighbors of Pottsville, Pennsylvania, where they received orders to proceed south to the nation’s capital. Though not officially enlisted, Biddle wore the uniform of the Union and expressed his readiness to serve in whatever way he could. Along with four other Pennsylvania companies, the men arrived by train in Baltimore on April 18. As they marched past a jeering pro-Confederate mob, shouts of “Nigger in uniform” were heard. Then someone yelled, “Kill that —ed brother of Abe Lincoln.” Suddenly, “a missile” hit Biddle in the face cutting through his skin and exposing the bone. Lieutenant James Russell caught the black trooper as he stumbled, while the rest of the outfit hurried on to their waiting train bound for Washington. Years later, his Pottsville friends engraved on Biddle’s 73

David Williams

tombstone that he held “the proud distinction of shedding the first blood in the late war for the Union.”3 Few northern whites were so generous in acknowledging the efforts of their black neighbors. The Massachusetts legislature voted down a proposal to accept black troops. Officials in Providence ordered local blacks to stop holding military drills, calling them “disorderly gatherings.” Republican Governor William Dennison of Ohio issued an edict prohibiting African Americans from state service.4 Lincoln was no more eager for their services. Though differing with Confederates on the issue of disunion, the president remained united with them in his racist views. Blacks, he thought, simply could not make good soldiers. “If we were to arm them,” Lincoln said, “I fear that in a few weeks the arms would be in the hands of the rebels.”5 Regardless of the president’s feelings, events affecting the role of blacks in the conflict quickly moved beyond his control. The pressures that escaping slaves put on Union forces in the field demanded a response. The first significant reaction came in May 1861 when General Benjamin Butler, commanding federal troops in Virginia, realized that it was futile to turn back fugitives. They would not stay away. So he declared them “contraband of war” and put them to work building fortifications. Lincoln let the move stand because the slaves were not technically free, just confiscated property. Congress supported that interpretation with its First Confiscation Act. In the fall of 1861, as more and more self-emancipated people flooded into Union camps, Major General Henry Halleck, the Army’s general-in-chief, issued orders barring them from federal lines. It was not the Army’s role, Halleck wrote, “to decide upon the relation of master to man.” General William Harney, commanding the Department of the West, dutifully ordered his troops to return runaways to their owners. So did Colonel D.S. Miles in Virginia, who ordered one of his subordinates to make sure that any escaped slaves went, whether they wanted or not, “back to the farm.”6 Such efforts had little effect. Despite Lincoln’s desire not to make slavery a war issue, blacks themselves forced the question by refusing to stay put. The farther south Lincoln’s military advanced, the more blacks made their way to Union lines. And it was impossible to re-enslave them. They simply would not submit to it. So, the president tried to get in front of the issue by calling for gradual emancipation.7 There was pressure for emancipation on the home front too. Abolitionists had been applying pressure from the war’s beginning with little success. But news of black refugees flooding into Union lines sparked a new concern among white Northerners. If the war ended with slavery intact, would slaves return to their former owners? Union troops had already tried—and failed— to force them back. George Boutwell, former governor of Massachusetts, warned in the summer of 1862 that if slavery were not abolished, the North would soon be “overrun by escaped fugitives.” The Atlantic Monthly expressed the same fear, informing its readers that chattel slaves would inundate the North if the peculiar institution persisted.8 General John A. Dix, a few weeks later, confirmed these concerns when he asked permission to contact state governors and arrange asylum and employment for black refugees. When word of the plan reached Massachusetts, whites howled in protest. Opposition was especially fierce among Republicans, who accused Dix of saddling their party with the stigma of encouraging black migration to the North. Governor John Andrew took the lead in arguing that blacks should remain in the South. Within weeks of Dix’s request, Andrew was in Washington telling administration officials face-to-face that Massachusetts would not be a haven for escaped slaves. Silence among white abolitionists confirmed the widespread hostility toward black refugees and went a long way toward defeating Dix’s plan to resettle blacks. “Massachusetts don’t want them,” declared the editor of Springfield’s Daily Republican. “No free state wants them.”9 74

“We Did Our Duty as Men Should”

Pushing for a policy of racial containment, northern whites from a broad range of political stripes pressured Lincoln to keep blacks in the South. Republicans in Congress put pressure on him as well. War Democrats who supported ending slavery as a necessary war measure joined them. Some even argued that escaping slaves ought to be enlisted and put on the front lines. Battle and desertion had depleted Union ranks, and few white volunteers were willing to replace them. In the summer of 1862, Congress passed the Militia Act, authorizing black enlistment, and the Second Confiscation Act, freeing all slaves owned by pro-Confederate slaveholders.10 Though the Act’s intent was clear, its enforcement would be unwieldy. Determining the difference between those slaveholders who had engaged in disloyal acts and those who had not would be almost impossible. Moreover, Lincoln thought that to enforce the act might cause more white soldiers to desert. Emancipation might even push the remaining loyal slave states of Missouri, Kentucky, and Maryland out of the Union. Lincoln also worried that an emancipation announcement coming after a string of military defeats in the summer of 1862 would make his government look weak and desperate. But the Battle of Antietam changed that. On September 22, just days after the Army of the Potomac turned back a Rebel advance near the western Maryland village of Sharpsburg, Lincoln issued his preliminary Emancipation Proclamation. Effective January 1, 1863, slaves held in areas still in rebellion against the United States would be forever free. The Proclamation was a tentative document that freed only slaves it could not immediately reach; the document applied neither to slaves in the Border States nor to those in areas of the Confederacy already under Union control. It was a necessary war measure, Lincoln insisted, meant primarily to undermine the rebellion. Still, it turned the Union army into a force for liberation and called for blacks themselves to join that force. Blacks throughout the country—North and South, free and enslaved—rejoiced as word of the Proclamation spread. Despite its limited scope, Frederick Douglass called the Proclamation “a moral bombshell” that was more important for its implication than its intent.11 Whatever Lincoln’s view of the matter, blacks themselves would take the document, make it their own, and make it more than it was. Within days of the Proclamation’s preliminary announcement, slaves began escaping to Union lines and claiming freedom. Even slaves in the Border States, where the document did not apply, nevertheless claimed freedom for themselves. The Emancipation Proclamation had its intended effect on African American men. They flooded into recruiting offices across the North and flocked to Union lines across the South, tens of thousands of them eager to enlist. Frederick Douglass was among the most enthusiastic supporters of black enlistment. “The iron gate of our prison stands half open,” he told African Americans as he urged them to arms. “One gallant rush . . . will fling it wide.”12 Two of Douglass’ sons joined that rush along with roughly two hundred thousand other black men.13 The vast majority of them were from the southern states. Most had been slaves. But no longer. “Once let the black man get upon his person the brass letters, ‘U.S.,’” Douglass proclaimed, “let him get an eagle on his buttons and a musket on his shoulder and bullets in his pocket, and there is no power on earth which can deny that he has earned the right to citizenship.”14 Most white men were repulsed at the thought of having to respect the rights of manhood and citizenship for black men. To avoid that eventuality, many whites, especially those in the army, wanted to keep blacks and slavery out of the conflict. One study of letters from Union soldiers showed that prior to emancipation, not three in ten thought that ending slavery should be a war aim. Sergeant William Pippey of Boston thought there were far fewer than that: “I don’t believe there is one abolitionist in one thousand in the army.” The few who held abolitionist views usually kept their opinions to themselves. When Henry Wooten, an enlisted man from New York, spoke up for abolitionism early in the war, one of his fellow soldiers shot him.15 75

David Williams

Most white soldiers were just as adamant about keeping blacks out of the army. As one Pennsylvania sergeant wrote, “We don’t want to fight side and side by the nigger. We think we are too superior a race for that.” A Michigan corporal insisted that white men were “superior to niggers” and that he did not want “to go through the rough life of a soldier and perhaps get shot, for a d——d nigger.” After white Union soldiers at Plymouth, North Carolina, heard rumors of the pending arrival of black troopers from Massachusetts, they threatened to “throw down their arms.” An Indiana private wrote home to his parents that “if old Abe arms them niggers I will quit and go South.”16 Few went south, but many did desert.17 Of those who stayed, most came to abolitionism grudgingly. Some refused to call themselves abolitionists at all. “I am no abolitionist,” insisted an Ohio soldier, “in fact dispise the word.” But, as did so many others, he came to see that “as long as slavery exists . . . there will be no permanent peace for America. . . . Hence I am in favor of killing slavery.” An Indiana sergeant wrote to his wife that he would support freeing the slaves “if it will only bring the war to an end any sooner[.] I am like the fellow that got his house burned by the guerillas[.] [H]e was in for emancipation subjugation extermination and hell and damnation. We are in war and anything to beat the south.”18 Such ambivalent attitudes, antislavery though they were, worried black leaders. Barely a month after the Proclamation took effect, Frederick Douglass voiced his concern before an assembly in New York. Much as I value the present apparent hostility to Slavery at the North, I plainly see that it is less the outgrowth of high and intelligent moral conviction against Slavery, as such, than because of the trouble its friends have brought upon the country. I would have Slavery hated for that and more. A man that hates Slavery for what it does to the white man, stands ready to embrace it the moment its injuries are confined to the black man, and he ceases to feel those injuries in his own person.19 So strong was prejudice against the abilities of black soldiers among most Union generals that it remained a question whether they would do anything more than menial tasks. General William T. Sherman bluntly told a recruiter that blacks were “not the equal of the white man.” According to Sherman, blacks should “be used for some side purposes and not be brigaded with our white men.” Most other officers felt the same way. They set black soldiers to building fortifications, hauling carts, or digging latrines—anything that might rob them of an opportunity to earn the respect that came with combat service. In some regiments, the colonel was “Ole Massa.” Squads were “work gangs” and their officers “nigger drivers.” The soldiers may as well have been slaves.20 Yet there were commanders of black regiments who committed themselves to earning respect for their men and pushed hard for combat assignments. They made the most of their opportunities when they came. On May 27, 1863, the Louisiana Native Guard, composed mainly of black enlisted men, participated in an assault against Confederate fortifications on the Mississippi River at Port Hudson, twenty-five miles north of Baton Rouge. In an after-action report, one of the Guard’s white lieutenants admitted that he had entertained some fears as to his men’s “pluck.” “But I have now none,” he added. “Valiantly did the heroic descendants of Africa move forward cool as if Marshaled for dress parade, under a most murderous fire from the enemies guns . . . these men did not swerve, or show cowardice. I have been in several engagements, and I never before beheld such coolness and daring. Their gallantry entitles them to a special praise. And I already observe, the sneers of others are being tempered into eulogy.”21 A few days later on June 7, two regiments of former slaves fended off attacking Rebels at Milliken’s Bend, a Federal stronghold on the Mississippi River just north of Vicksburg. “I never 76

“We Did Our Duty as Men Should”

more wish to hear the expression, ‘the niggers won’t fight,’” wrote Union Captain M. M. Miller after the battle. One official reported to the War Department that “the sentiment in regard to the employment of negro troops has been revolutionized by the bravery of the blacks in the recent Battle of Milliken’s Bend. Prominent officers, who used in private sneer at the idea, are now heartily in favor of it.”22 The notion that blacks lacked the discipline for soldiering received a further blow on July 16 when the 54th Massachusetts fought off a Rebel charge on James Island just south of Charleston, South Carolina. The regiment suffered thirty-nine casualties, but it held fast. “It is not for us to blow our own horn,” Corporal James Henry Gooding wrote back home to Boston, “but when a regiment of white men gave us three cheers as we were passing them, it shows that we did our duty as men should.”23 An even tougher test came two days later when the 54th spearheaded an assault on Fort Wagner, which guarded the southern approach to Charleston harbor. Though the effort to take Wagner failed, it was not from a lack of trying. Six hundred men of the 54th went in on the assault. Nearly half were captured, killed, or wounded. One of the most severely wounded was Sergeant William H. Carney, a refugee from slavery in Virginia. When a color sergeant went down, Carney grabbed the flag, planted it on Wagner’s parapet, fought off attempts to capture it, and carried it away with him despite wounds to his head, chest, right leg, and arm. On arriving at a field hospital, he passed the colors to a regimental officer, reporting, to the cheers of his wounded comrades, “Boys, the old flag never touched the ground.” Carney became one of twenty-three black Civil War servicemen awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor.24 Blacks sometimes received grudging admiration even from Confederates. After the engagement at Milliken’s Bend, one Rebel soldier wrote that his black foes fought “with considerable obstinacy, while the white or true Yankee portion ran like whipped curs.” Such observations provide evidence that respect between soldiers, at times, overcame the color line. One Yankee wrote of his surprise when Confederates agreed to a picket-line truce with black soldiers facing them. “The rebels and our colored soldiers now converse together on apparently very friendly terms, and exchange such luxuries as apples, tobacco, and hard tack, by throwing them to each other. It was hardly deemed possible that the enemy could be induced to refrain from firing on black troops wherever they could be seen.”25 But Rebel commanders usually wanted their men to kill as many black troops as possible, at times including potential prisoners. Despite the Confederate government’s official policy that captured blacks were to be enslaved, the unofficial policy of many Confederate officers was that black troopers, even those trying to surrender, deserved no quarter. Some rank-and-file Rebels balked at such barbarism. At Milliken’s Bend, they took dozens of blacks prisoner rather than murder them in cold blood. One officer recalled hearing his men shout during the battle that surrendering blacks should be spared. When General Edmund Kirby Smith heard that so many blacks had been captured alive, he told one of his commanders: “I hope this may not be so, and that your subordinates who may have been in command of capturing parties may have recognized the propriety of giving no quarter to armed negroes and their officers.” Rebel deserters later testified that three days after the battle, they saw black prisoners of war executed.26 Such atrocities took place in numerous engagements. The colonel of an Alabama regiment told his men “to shoot, wherever and whenever captured, all negroes found armed.” In Louisiana, one Texas colonel ordered his cavalry brigade to charge a fort held by African American soldiers and to “take none with uniforms on.” In Arkansas, at the Battle of Poison Springs, eyewitnesses reported black prisoners of war being “murdered on the spot.” The same occurred at the Battle of Saltville in Virginia, where Confederates “brutally murdered” black prisoners. During the Battle of the Crater outside Petersburg, Virginia, Rebels ran bayonets through wounded black 77

David Williams

soldiers. After his men slaughtered their surrendered African American prisoners at Tennessee’s Fort Pillow, an enthused Nathan Bedford Forrest called it a clear demonstration that “negro soldiers cannot cope with Southerners.”27 Ultimately, the take-no-prisoners approach worked more against Confederates than for them. When word of the murders spread, black soldiers began to fight with a fiery rage that astonished friend and foe alike. The Rebels, recalled one Union officer, “fear them more than they would fear Indians.” A white cavalryman from Maine wrote home after one engagement that he saw black troops shooting Confederates who were trying to surrender. “The officers had hard work to stop them from killing all the prisoners,” he recalled. “When one of them would beg for his life the niggers would say remember Port Hudson.” After a company of black cavalrymen surrounded a band of Confederate guerrillas, someone shouted “Remember Ft. Pillow.” They captured seventeen prisoners, then shot them dead. A white officer in one black regiment wrote home to his wife that some of his men had killed five captured Confederates. “Had it not been for Ft Pillow,” he lamented, “those 5 men might be alive now. . . . It looks hard but we cannot blame these men much.”28 Indeed, few of their comrades faulted African American soldiers for giving no quarter to men that they believed would give them none. The general rule was kill or be killed. Even for those blacks who survived initial captivity, life as a prisoner of war was always brutal and often brief. Private Joseph Howard of the 110th Colored Infantry wrote of his experience: “We were kept at hard labor and inhumanely treated. . . . If we lagged or faltered or misunderstood an order we were whipped and abused. . . . For the slightest causes we were subjected to the lash [and] we were very poorly provided for with food.” Medical care for black prisoners was poor at best and often nonexistent. An inmate at Andersonville witnessed the treatment of one black captive who fell into Rebel hands after the Battle of Olustee: “One fellow had a hand shot off and some deranged brutes had cut off his ears and nose. The doctors refused to dress his wounds or even amputate his shattered arm; he was naked in the prison and finally died from his numerous wounds.” Blacks held in Confederate prison camps died at a rate of thirty-five percent, more than twice the average for white captives.29 The treatment black soldiers received from their own army was often little better, especially when it came to medical care. They received the least competent doctors and lackluster medical attention. An inspector general reported that the surgeon who ran one black hospital “did not evince much knowledge of his duties.” Others earned the monikers of “simpletons” and “murderers.” When one black soldier reported for sick call, the surgeon had him bucked and gagged for faking illness. A day later the soldier was dead. Another surgeon kicked a black patient for leaving his tent without permission. The man had needed to relieve himself. He died that evening. As another dying black soldier lay moaning in pain, a surgeon yelled, “God damn him if he was going to die and don’t [make] So much fuss about it.” Small wonder that the rate of death from disease for black soldiers was three times that of whites.30 If the death rate was higher, basic pay for blacks was lower—ten dollars a month instead of the normal thirteen. And the army withheld three dollars more for the cost of their uniforms. Still, the need for income among black soldiers’ families was no less than for whites. As one black soldier expressed the need, “Our families—hundreds, nay thousands, of helpless women and children—are this day suffering for the natural means of subsistence, whose husbands and fathers have responded to the country’s call.” For soldier and freedman Solomon Steward, not being able to support his family was especially painful. Writing from Union-held Fernandina, Florida, his wife Emma informed him that an “administering angel Has Come and borne My Dear Little babe To Join In Tones with Them sweet and pure as angels whispers. My babe only Live one day It was a Little Girl. Her name Is alice Gurtrude steward I am now sick In Bed and have Got nothing To Live on.” Such letters made clear the practical impact of discriminatory pay.31 78

“We Did Our Duty as Men Should”

If they could not have a soldier’s pay, many refused to take any at all. In a show of support for their men, neither did some of their officers. Colonel Robert Gould Shaw refused to have anyone in his regiment paid until all his men received equitable pay. Captain A.W. Heasley told his company, “Boys, stand up for your full pay! I am with you, and so are all the officers.” Not all officers were so supportive, and mutiny was sometimes the result. After it became apparent that their officers would not petition the government on their behalf, several black units stacked arms and refused to do any service until they got equal pay. When a black artillery company declined to fall out for inspection, all the sergeants and corporals, along with twenty privates, faced court-martial for its mutiny. A riot broke out when the court sentenced them to prison.32 As they resisted inequitable pay, black soldiers also resisted inequitable treatment, especially treatment that reminded them too much of slavery. When one captain had a soldier tied up, just as a plantation overseer might have done, two of the victim’s comrades freed him. Freedom meant an escape from slavery. If bound, a soldier was not free, but a slave. One private cut a friend loose and exclaimed, “No white son of a bitch can tie a man up here.” In the 8th Kansas, after a West Point graduate had a black soldier tied up and suspended by his thumbs, the troops grabbed their rifles, freed the man, and ran all the officers out of camp. Twenty-six soldiers were soon under arrest, but regimental officers wisely let the matter drop.33 Most officers were not so generous. African American soldiers faced more mutiny charges and received stiffer punishments than their white colleagues. Though blacks accounted for roughly ten percent of Union servicemen, almost eighty percent of those court-martialed and executed for mutiny were black. And those were the ones who received at least the formality of a hearing. Many did not. Robert Gould Shaw wrote of Colonel James Montgomery, who commanded another regiment of blacks in the same brigade: “He shoots his men with perfect looseness, for a slight disobedience of orders.” So did Lieutenant Francis Bichinel of the 36th U.S. Colored Troops, who shot a black soldier named Silas Holley for nothing more than “alleged stubbornness” and “manifesting a mutinous spirit.” Had such traits been capital crimes, nearly every soldier, black or white, would have faced execution. From the officers’ perspective, almost all were guilty of these shortcomings at one time or another.34 Poorly as most black soldiers were treated, it is a testament to their fortitude that their desertion rate was only slightly above the average for whites. For those who did desert, a frequent complaint was that they had been treated not as soldiers but as slaves. In September 1864, Private Spencer Brown of the 5th Regiment, USCT, deserted. His comrades had heard him remark with disgust “that he was no better treated in the army than he was by his former master.”35 Still, there were small signs that black soldiers’ sacrifices were having at least some impact on white attitudes. In February 1864, New York City saw its first black regiment formed, the 20th U.S. Colored Troops. Before it left for the front, supporters insisted on having the 20th parade down streets where blacks had been brutally beaten and murdered just seven months earlier during a week-long draft riot. Now black soldiers marched boldly down those same streets, greeted as one witness recalled with “waving handkerchiefs, flowers [and] acclamation.” The New York Times saw the event as symbolic of a “prodigious revolution which the public mind everywhere is experiencing.”36 Opposition to using blacks in the Union Army was indeed beginning to crumble during the winter of 1863–1864 as Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, Illinois, Connecticut, and New York organized black troops by the thousands. Attitudes among white servicemen were changing as well. Much as they had resisted it, most gradually came to accept emancipation and blacks in the military as a necessary part of the war effort. Some even took pride in it. One naval officer from Massachusetts had been described by those who knew him as “a bitter pro-slavery man, violent in his talk against abolitionists and ‘niggers,’” but after serving with blacks in Louisiana, he 79

David Williams

was so impressed that he returned home a committed abolitionist. On a Boston train, as a black soldier stepped onto the car, someone yelled, “I’m not going to ride with niggers.” The officer, in full uniform, rose from his seat for all to see and called out, “Come here, my good fellow! I’ve been fighting alongside of people of your color, and glad enough I was to have ’em by my side. Come sit by me.”37 Confederate officers too were impressed with the effectiveness of black soldiers. It was they and their men, after all, who had been on the receiving end of black fighting skill. After Port Hudson, Milliken’s Bend, and Fort Wagner, some Confederates began to imagine what had until then seemed unimaginable—freeing the slaves and arming them. By 1864 perhaps two-thirds of the army’s men had deserted.38 Without a manpower solution to this dilemma, the Confederate cause would soon be lost. Southern slaveholders were generally reluctant to place weapons in the hands of their slaves, but by the winter of 1864–1865 the government was running out of options. On March 13, 1865, only weeks before the war’s end, the Confederate Congress finally authorized recruitment of up to three hundred thousand slaves. It was a last-gasp measure that came far too late for the Confederacy. No more than a few dozen blacks assembled under its banner. On very rare occasions throughout the war, blacks entered into combat service, usually with guns at their backs and their families held hostage in slavery. But no regiment of black Confederate troops ever formed. By contrast, roughly two hundred thousand blacks had enlisted with Union forces. Another three hundred thousand served as military laborers.39 Hundreds of thousands more were already free. They needed no favors from a near-dead Confederacy to secure that freedom. They were taking full measure of it themselves, especially black Union soldiers. One spoke with pride about how he had, “for once in his life . . . walked fearlessly and boldly through the streets of a southern city! And he did this without being required to take off his cap at every step, or to give all the side-walks to those lordly princes of the sunny south, the planters’ sons!”40

Notes 1 Roy P. Basler, Marion Dolores Pratt, and Lloyd A. Dunlap, eds., The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, vol. 4 (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1953–1955), 262–271; Journal of the House of Representatives of the United States, Thirty-Seventh Congress, First Session (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1861), 58: 123; Journal of the Senate of the United States, Thirty-Seventh Congress, First Session (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1861), 53: 91. 2 The Liberator (Boston), April 26 and May 31, 1861, and August 22, 1862; Douglass’ Monthly (Rochester, NY), May 1861; Jacob Dodson to Simon Cameron, April 23, 1861, United States War Department, War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1880–1901), series 3, vol. 1, 107 (hereafter cited as Official Records). 3 Francis B. Wallace, Memorial of the Patriotism of Schuylkill County, in the American Slaveholder’s Rebellion (Pottsville, PA: Bannan, 1865), 77–78; Heber S. Thompson, The First Defenders (n.p., 1910), 14; Annie Wittenmyer, Under the Guns: A Woman’s Reminiscences of the Civil War (Boston: E. B. Stills, 1895), 90–91. 4 Springfield (Mass.) Daily Republican, May 25, 1861; Liberator, August 22, 1862; Boston Evening Transcript, May 8, 1861. 5 Reply to Emancipation Memorial Presented by Chicago Christians of All Denominations, September 13, 1862, in Basler et al., The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, 5: 423. 6 General Orders No. 3, Headquarters, Department of the Missouri, November 20, 1861, in Ira Berlin, Barbara J. Fields, Thavolia Glymph, Joseph P. Reidy, and Leslie S. Rowland, eds., Freedom: A Documentary History of Emancipation, 1861–1867, series 1, vol. 1, The Destruction of Slavery (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985), 417 (hereafter cited as Destruction of Slavery); D. S. Miles, Endorsement, July 15, 1861, Official Records, series 1, vol. 2, 299–300. 7 For an overview of how escaping slaves and blacks generally contributed to the emancipation process, see David Williams, African American Self-Emancipation in the Civil War Era (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2014). For the best treatments of Lincoln and his view of blacks, see Paul D. Escott, What

80

“We Did Our Duty as Men Should”

8 9

10

11 12 13

14 15

16

17 18

19 20

Shall We Do With the Negro?: Lincoln, White Racism, and Civil War America (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2009) and Eric Foner, The Fiery Trial: Abraham Lincoln and American Slavery (New York: W. W. Norton, 2010). While Foner leans toward emphasizing Lincoln’s moral growth, Escott reminds us of the limits of that growth. Lowell (Mass.) Daily Citizen and News, August 9, 1862; E. H. Derby, “Resources of the South,” Atlantic Monthly 10 (October 1862): 508. For an overview of the Dix plan and reaction to it, see V. Jacque Voegeli, “A Rejected Alternative: Union Policy and the Relocation of Southern ‘Contrabands’ at the Dawn of Emancipation,” Journal of Southern History 69 (2003): 766–787. See page 786 for the quote from the Springfield Daily Republican, November 15, 1862. Statutes at Large, Treaties, and Proclamations of the United States of America (Boston: Little, Brown, and Company, 1863), 12: 589–592, 597–600. For the most complete treatments of the evolution and impact of confiscation, see John Syrett, The Civil War Confiscation Acts: Failing to Reconstruct the South (New York: Fordham University Press, 2005) and Silvana R. Siddali, From Property to Person: Slavery and the Confiscation Acts, 1861–1862 (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2005). Douglass’ Monthly, November 1862. Broadside entitled “Men of Color, To Arms” in The Life and Writings of Frederick Douglass, ed. Philip S. Foner, 4 vols. (New York: International Publishers, 1950–1955), 3: 319. Blacks in the Union army totaled almost 179,000. Figures for those in the Union navy, according to Howard University’s Black Sailors Project, show that approximately 18,000 served, though some sources give higher estimates. At least eleven black women passed themselves off as men and served in the Union navy. Three are known to have served in the Union army, though there were probably more. See John David Smith, ed., Black Soldiers in Blue: African American Troops in the Civil War Era (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2002), xiii; Barbara Brooks Tomblin, Bluejackets and Contrabands: African Americans and the Union Navy (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2009), 188; DeAnne Blanton and Lauren M. Cook, They Fought Like Demons: Women Soldiers in the American Civil War (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2002), 6. Douglass’ Monthly, August 1863. James McPherson, What They Fought For, 1861–1865 (New York: Anchor Books, 1995), 56; Pippey to A. Heath and B. Y. Pippey, July 31, 1862, William T. Pippey Papers, Duke University, in Randall C. Jimerson, The Private Civil War: Popular Thought during the Sectional Conflict (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1988), 41; A. C. Wilcox to cousin Mary, May 31, 1864, New York Eighty-First Infantry Folder, “United States Army Military History Institute” in Civil War Soldiers, ed. Reid Mitchell (New York: Viking, 1988), 14. Felix Brannigan to sister, July 16, 1862, Felix Brannigan Papers, “Library of Congress” in Private Civil War, ed. Jimerson, 93; Marion Munson to Joshua Van Hoosen, February 19, 1863, Joshua Van Hoosen Papers, “University of Michigan” in ibid., 95; H. G. Spruill to Josiah Collins, March 16, 1863, Josiah Collins Papers, “North Carolina Division of Archives and History, Raleigh” in War of Another Kind: A Southern Community in the Great Rebellion, ed. Wayne K. Durrill (New York: Oxford University Press, 1990), 173; Charles H. Sowle to parents, January 26, 1863, Charles H. Sowle Papers, “Duke University” in Private Civil War, ed. Jimerson, 41. Compiled reports for all Union armies in February 1863 showed a third of the troops absent. See Ella Lonn, Desertion During the Civil War (Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press, 1998), 151. Henry Henney to family, n.d. [late December 1862], “United States Army Military History Institute” in What They Fought For, ed. McPherson, 62; Amory K. Allen to My Dear Companion [Mary Delphany Allen], January 8, 1863, in “Civil War Letters of Amory K. Allen,” Indiana Magazine of History 31 (1935): 361. Douglass’ Monthly, March 1863. Sherman to John A. Spooner [recruiter], July 30, 1864, in Ira Berlin, Joseph P. Reidy and Leslie S. Rowland, eds., Freedom: A Documentary History of Emancipation, 1861–1867, series 2, The Black Military Experience (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982), 110–111 (hereafter cited as Black Military Experience); Sherman to John Sherman, April 26, 1863, William Tecumseh Sherman Papers, Library of Congress, in Free But Not Equal: The Midwest and the Negro During the Civil War, ed. V. Jacque Voegeli (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1969), 101; D. Densmore to Benjamin [December 1864], and to “Dear Friends at Home,” December 18, 1864, Benjamin Densmore Family Papers, Minnesota Historical Society, in Campfires of Freedom: The Camp Life of Black Soldiers During the Civil War, ed. Keith P. Wilson (Kent, OH: Kent State University Press, 2002), 39.

81

David Williams 21 Capt. Elias D. Strunke [officer in a Louisiana black regiment] to Brig. Gen. Daniel Ullmann [commanding, Fifth Regiment, U.S. Volunteers, later Eighty-second Regiment, USCT], May 29, 1863, in Black Military Experience, eds. Berlin, Joseph P. Reidy, and Leslie S. Rowland., 528–529. 22 Miller to aunt, June 10, 1863, Official Records, series 3, vol. 3, 452–53; Charles A. Dana [special commissioner, War Department] to Edwin M. Stanton, June 22, 1863, Official Records, series 1, vol. 24, part 1, 105–106. 23 Corporal James Henry Gooding, On the Altar of Freedom: A Black Soldier’s Civil War Letters from the Front, ed. Virginia M. Adams (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1991), 36–38. 24 Return of Casualties in the Union Forces, Official Records, series 1, vol. 28, part 1, 210; Col. E. N. Hallowell [commanding, Fifty-fourth Massachusetts Regiment] to Gen. Truman Seymour, November 7, 1863, ibid., series 1, vol. 28, part 1, 362–363. See also Peter Burchard, One Gallant Rush: Robert Gould Shaw and His Brave Black Regiment (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1965), 137–141. The Carney quote is from Robert Stewart Davis, “Three Months Around Charleston Bar; or the Great Siege as We Saw It,” United States Service Magazine 1 (1864): 282. Carney’s Medal of Honor, like most of those won by black servicemen, was awarded long after the war. Carney’s came in 1900, eight years before his death at age sixty-eight. Since his was the earliest engagement for which the medal was awarded, Carney is sometimes credited with being the first African American Medal of Honor winner. 25 Gen. Henry D. McCulloch [commanding a Confederate brigade] to Maj. R. P. Maclay [assistant adjutant and inspector general], June 8, 1863, Official Records, series 1, vol. 24, part 2, 467; R. J. M. Blackett, ed., Thomas Morris Chester, Black Civil War Correspondent: His Dispatches from the Virginia Front (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1989), 115. 26 Richard Lowe, “Battle on the Levee: The Fight at Milliken’s Bend” in Black Soldiers in Blue, ed. Smith, 125; Smith [commanding, Confederate Department of the Trans-Mississippi] to Gen. R. Taylor [commanding, Confederate District of Louisiana], June 13, 1863, in Berlin et al., Black Military Experience, 578; Lt. Commander E. K. Ewen [Union naval officer] to Adm. David D. Porter [commanding, Mississippi Squadron], June 16, 1863, in ibid., 581. 27 Col. Jno. R. F. Tattnall [commanding, Alabama Confederate regiment] to Capt. S. Croom [Headquarters, Confederate District of the Gulf], November 8, 1862, in Berlin et al., Black Military Experience, 570–71; Gregory J. W. Urwin, “ ‘We Cannot Treat Negroes . . . as Prisoners of War’: Racial Atrocities and Reprisals in Civil War Arkansas” in Black Flag Over Dixie: Racial Atrocities and Reprisals in the Civil War, ed. Gregory J. W. Urwin (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 2004), 141; Col. James M. Williams [First Kansas Colored Infantry Regiment] to Capt. William S. Whitten [assistant adjutant-general], April 24, 1864, Official Records, series 1, vol. 34, part 1, 746; Col. James S. Brisbin [superintendent of the organization of Kentucky black troops] to Gen. L. Thomas, October 20, 1864, in Berlin et al., Black Military Experience, 558; Bryce A. Suderow, “Battle of the Crater: The Civil War’s Worst Massacre” in Black Flag Over Dixie, 203–209; John Cimprich and Robert C. Mainfort Jr., eds., “Fort Pillow Revisited: New Evidence about an Old Controversy,” Civil War History 28 (1982): 299; Forrest to Lt. Col. Thomas M. Jack [assistant adjutant-general], April 15, 1864, Official Records, series 1, vol. 32, part 1, 610. 28 Benjamin Stevens to mother, August 12, 1863, in Richard N. Ellis, ed., “The Civil War Letters of an Iowa Family,” Annals of Iowa 39 (1969): 582; Joseph T. Glatthaar, Forged in Battle: The Civil War Alliance of Black Soldiers and White Officers (New York: Free Press, 1990), 157. 29 Statement of Private Joseph Howard, January 30, 1865, Official Records, series 2, vol. 8, 153; S. S. Boggs, Eighteen Months a Prisoner Under the Rebel Flag (Lovington, Ill.: n.p., 1880), 26–27; Lonnie R. Speer, Portals to Hell: Military Prisons of the Civil War (Mechanicsburg, PA: Stackpole Books, 1997), 108. 30 Unsigned to Sir [unidentified Washington official], August 20, 1864, in Berlin et al., Black Military Experience, 640–641. For contrast of death from disease between black and white soldiers, see Margaret Humphreys, Intensely Human: The Health of the Black Soldier in the American Civil War (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2008), 11. 31 Christian Recorder (Philadelphia), May 21, 1864; Emma to husband John, February 8, 1864, in Thomas Wentworth Higginson, “Intensely Human,” Atlantic Monthly 93 (1904): 596–597. 32 Col. E. N. Hallowell [commanding, Fifty-fourth Massachusetts Volunteers] to Gov. John A. Andrew, November 23, 1863, in Berlin et al., Black Military Experience, 387; Shaw to brother Clem., July 1, 1863, in Russell Duncan, ed., Blue-Eyed Child of Fortune: The Civil War Letters of Colonel Robert Gould Shaw (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1992), 367–368; Sgt. John F. Shorter et al. to President of the United States, July 16, 1864, in Berlin et al., Black Military Experience, 401–402; Capt. Thomas W. Fry to [?], September 21, 1864, in William H. Chenery, The Fourteenth Regiment Rhode Island Heavy Artillery (Colored) in the War to Preserve the Union, 1861–1865 (Providence, RI: Snow and Farnham, 1898), 66.

82

“We Did Our Duty as Men Should” 33 Glatthaar, Forged in Battle, 115, 117. 34 Gary Kynoch, “Terrible Dilemmas: Black Enlistment in the Union Army During the American Civil War” in The Price of Freedom: Slavery and the Civil War, eds. Martin H. Greenberg and Charles G. Waugh (Nashville: Cumberland House, 2000), 1: 121; Shaw to Charley Morse, July 3, 1863, in Duncan, BlueEyed Child of Fortune, 369; Blackett, Thomas Morris Chester, 115. 35 Ella Lonn, Desertion During the Civil War (reprint, Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press, [1928] 1998), 149–50; Blackett, Thomas Morris Chester, 115. 36 Henry O’Rielly, First Organization of Colored Troops in the State of New York to Aid in Suppressing the Slaveholders’ Rebellion (New York: New York Association for Colored Volunteers, 1864), 15–18; New York Times, March 7, 1864. 37 Lydia Maria Child to Eliza Scudder, [n.d.] 1864, Letters of Lydia Maria Child (Boston: Houghton, Mifflin, and Co., 1883), 180. 38 In the early fall of 1864, Jefferson Davis publicly admitted that “two-thirds of our men are absent . . . most of them without leave.” See Athens (Ga.) Southern Watchman, September 28, 1864. 39 Estimate of laborers from W.E.B. Du Bois, Black Reconstruction: An Essay Toward a History of the Part which Black Folk Played in the Attempt to Reconstruct Democracy in America, 1860–1880 (New York: Harcourt, Brace, and Co., 1935), 716. 40 Christian Recorder, May 28, 1864.

83

This page intentionally left blank

7 RACE AND IRREGULAR WARFARE ON THE TRANS-MISSISSIPPI BORDER, 1861–1865 Matthew M. Stith

In May 1863, twenty-five African American troops from the 1st Kansas Colored Volunteer Infantry and a small contingent of white soldiers ordered the Rader family out of their two-story house in southwest Missouri. Following a brief assessment, the Federal foragers found several bushels of corn that had been stored upstairs. The war in the region was about food as much as anything else, and the Yankees had found enough to fill their wagons. Excited by their newfound bounty, the black soldiers leaned their rifles against the fence and went to work tossing the corn out the second-story windows to the wagons below. Suddenly, over sixty Confederate guerrillas emerged on horseback and surrounded the house. A brief fight ensued, and those white Federals who did not perish in the immediate onslaught, fled. Meanwhile, the unarmed black troops inside the house were trapped. The guerrillas set the house on fire. Those caught inside had a choice: burn to death or attempt to flee. They chose the latter. The guerrillas clubbed the black men to death or shot them down. Almost all perished.1 The vicious little fight at the Rader Farm ended almost as quickly as it had started. Self-proclaimed guerrilla “captain” Thomas Livingston and his men had surprised and killed sixteen Union troops, most of whom were black. He kept only five alive to use as leverage for a prisoner exchange. For Livingston and the Confederate guerrillas, the Rader Farm Massacre had been a resounding success. He boasted to Confederate Gen. Sterling Price that he had soundly defeated the black troops driven by the “hellish passions of their race.” Black soldiers taking corn from a pro-Confederate family seemingly verified everything that Livingston and his irregulars held true: the Federals had freed, armed, and encouraged slaves to fulfill their “hellish” desires upon innocent white Confederate families. This conviction—dubious as it may be—lies at the very core of Livingston’s irregular war. More broadly, it reflects the racial extremism that influenced the nature of irregular warfare on the western Trans-Mississippi border.2 The region where irregulars like Livingston plied their trade—where Kansas, Missouri, Arkansas, and Indian Territory blended together—represents one of the most racially and ethnically diverse areas in the South during the Civil War. Prior to 1861, this cultural and political borderland had undergone a rapid, complex, and often bloody period of border disputes based on politics and race. Most famously, Bleeding Kansas pitted pro-slave whites against their counterparts in eastern Kansas and western Missouri. Here, intense, racially driven warfare preceded formalized civil war by half a decade. In Indian Territory, the various Indian Nations had been embroiled in internal and external disorder since their arrival in the 1830s. Western Arkansas held a singular, 85

Matthew M. Stith

if tenuous, modicum of political and economic stability in the region during the 1850s. Within this wider border region, racial, cultural, and political boundaries overlapped with remarkable and dangerous fluidity. It was atop this unstable societal foundation that the most brutal, irregular war during the Civil War fully ignited in 1861. Indeed, when viewed in microcosm, the war on the western Trans-Mississippi border represents in concentrate the Civil War’s extremes in race and violence.3 Although guerrilla warfare is a critically important part of irregular warfare, the war on the border went well beyond guerrilla actions alone. Any style of warfare that defied traditional definitions of “regular” war—a style of war that moved beyond set-piece strategies, campaigns, and battles— can be usefully characterized as irregular. Definitions of irregular war can most closely be tied to what military theorist Carl von Clausewitz called “insurrectionary” or “partisan” warfare—a kind of fighting that went well beyond primary campaigns and battles and that could never be “decided by a single stroke” and nearly always occurred in “rough and inaccessible” terrain. Irregular warfare on the border was civilian-centered and characterized by the widespread and often deadly involvement of combatants and non-combatants. Finally, while this definition for irregular war certainly suited much of the South at different times during the conflict, few regions possessed such racial diversity and animosity than the western Trans-Mississippi border. Here, Indians, African Americans, and whites had become directly or indirectly, willingly or unwillingly engaged in a kind of war that superseded even Clausewitz’s definitions for a people’s war.4 Fighting a war beyond their cultural comfort zone against people outside their “cultural net,” as one historian calls it, led to a devastating experience for civilians and soldiers alike. Wisconsin farm boys could hardly reconcile their distrust and, at times, sheer loathing of residents in southwest Missouri. Confederate guerrillas terrorized African American soldiers every chance they had. Native Americans imparted their style of war—what some American tacticians called a “skulking way of war”—in the greater military effort and incited suspiciousness and very often hatred from both Union and Confederate soldiers. The nature of the conflict among soldiers and civilians with different cultures and ethnicities was often deadly and always confusing. According to a historian of the Indian Wars in colonial America, combatants “suffered from muddled convictions and uncertainties about the war’s boundaries and divisions.” And so it was on the western frontier of the Trans-Mississippi. The irregular war here was a messy, confusing, and an altogether brutal affair. It blurred the lines of what had been deemed as honorable or civilized warfare. Such was the stuff for regular armies fighting regular battles in regular campaigns. The intense racial and political hatred that helped fuel the war became the conflict’s centerpiece in the western margins of Missouri and Arkansas.5 Fully defining irregular warfare’s historiographical and ideological underpinnings on the border is impossible without understanding the incredibly cultural and ethnic diversity in the region. Warfare along the western Trans-Mississippi frontier was defined by a wide variety of people, especially Native Americans. Recent scholarship has reflected Indian Territory’s important role in the regular and, more importantly, irregular war. Clarissa Confer, Mary Jane Warde, and others have laid bare the devastating conflict that occurred in Indian Territory by illustrating the violent and destructive war in the conflicted region. Here, unlike anywhere else in the South, Native American combatants and civilians blended with white and African American soldiers and civilians to form an ethnic, cultural, and racial middle ground. No matter their allegiance, Indian civilians suffered immeasurably from the very onset of the war. Thousands died or became refugees. All were exposed to especially harsh environmental extremes, and they all became directly involved in the conflict. Their war was relentless, ubiquitous, and devastating.6 According to historian Mark Lause, the remarkable racial diversity on the border had created, for the Union, a “mutual interdependence among whites, blacks, and Indians in the face of the 86

Race and Irregular Warfare

enemy.” This, for Lause, became the very embodiment of what he calls the border war’s “radicalism.” In this radical racial and cultural environment, civilian refugees, guerrillas, and regular Confederate and Union forces interacted, often simultaneously, in what became a racially based and altogether irregular civil war. Most Civil War scholars, however, have focused their work within traditional political boundaries.7 Situated in the chronological and geographical shadow of Bleeding Kansas, it is little surprise that racial undertones permeated the irregular war on the border. Radical abolitionists had flocked to eastern Kansas, and many quickly volunteered to continue the already bloody fight against the new Confederacy and those who supported it. In John Brown’s wake emerged passionate anti-slave Kansas troops who continued their war against slavery and those who supported it in Missouri, Arkansas, and Indian Territory. Union commanders Jim Lane, James Montgomery, and others quickly set out to fight under the Union banner. Collectively known as “Jayhawkers,” they thrived in the middle ground between regular soldiers and guerrillas and, like Confederate guerrillas, they never drew a clear delineation between civilians and combatants. South of the Kansas-Missouri line, concepts of race shifted to include not only blacks—free and slave—but also, and especially, Native Americans. Like the country as a whole, Union and Confederate sympathies splintered the nations within Indian Territory. Their Civil War had become something of a war within a war, one fueled not only by national issues but persistent internecine tribal conflicts as well. In short, the war on the western Trans-Mississippi border was racially, culturally, and militarily complex. The fighting and suffering that broke out (or continued) in 1861 was by all accounts the very antithesis of the “regular” war further east.8 Racial and cultural struggles therefore emerged as an integral part of the conflict. Union Indians, blacks, and whites often fought together in a unified front against Confederate whites and Indians. Confederate guerrillas sought especially savage retribution against black troops, and white federal commanders increasingly came to question whether to grant guerrillas even the smallest level of mercy. Native American civilians suffered immeasurably within the first months of the war. The conflict had nullified their control over the environment. Such racial diversity on the frontier exemplified the radical nature of the conflict. The war in the region had soon become one influenced largely by what Lause has called the “heirs of John Brown.” Indeed, the racial tension and violence that had so indelibly marked the pre-war Kansas-Missouri border grew into a complex, terror-driven conflict that spilled over into Indian Territory and Arkansas.9 In the first months of the war, as both sides struggled to come to terms with the conflict, a deadly crisis had already unfolded on the border. Unionist Creek Indians—and a mixture of others—prepared to flee north from the Creek Nation in south central Indian Territory. Their leader, Creek Chief Opothleyahola, had assembled nearly eight thousand people, the vast majority of whom were civilians from a variety of Indian Nations. Nearly a thousand were slaves who had flocked to the refugee ranks in one of the first significant war-induced slave movements toward freedom. For Confederate authorities, Opothleyahola had committed something akin to theft by welcoming runaway slaves and hundreds of livestock to his ranks. In the fall of 1861, this army of Indians and slave refugees—mostly civilians—crossed the Arkansas River and moved north. They sought assistance from both the Cherokee Nation and Union authorities in southeastern Kansas. The Cherokee, uneasy about Opothleyahola’s inclusion of runaway slaves, kept clear, but Federal outposts in Kansas passively awaited the fugitives.10 Armed warriors and soldiers protecting Opothleyahola’s remarkably diverse and poorly supplied refugees numbered, by one estimate, between eight hundred and twelve hundred Creek and Seminole Indians and nearly three hundred armed African Americans. As they moved north toward Union territory, Confederate Gen. Douglas H. Cooper’s fourteen hundred man army gave chase. Cooper’s force consisted of an equally diverse group of Chickasaw, Choctaw, 87

Matthew M. Stith

Muscogee, Seminole, and Texas troops. The Confederates attacked the unwieldy army of refugees several times as they attempted their escape. At the Battle of Chustenahlah on December 26, part of Cooper’s army led by Col. James McIntosh engaged Opothleyahola’s force in the hills of northeast Indian Territory. The fight at Chustenahlah reflected not only the nature of most engagements endured by the fleeing Creeks, but also the new and brutal irregular style of war on the western Trans-Mississippi border. Regular soldiers engaged militia tasked not with waging a regular campaign but rather to protect thousands of civilians as they retreated toward relative safety. The vicious little fight was intense and confusing. It ran counter to most regular battles. The refugees split into small bands, attacked rapidly, and quickly melted back into the rugged terrain. McIntosh’s men had little choice but to reorient their tactics. According to one Confederate officer, Opothleyahola’s warriors had fought so desperately and asymmetrically that it compelled his men to “abandon strict military discipline and make use of somewhat similar movements in order to be successful.” In the end, McIntosh reported that his victorious Confederates had killed more than two hundred Indians and captured over a hundred women, children, and former slaves. He made clear, Opothleyahola’s refugees had been “scattered in every direction, destitute of the simplest elements of subsistence.”11 While Opothleyahola’s fighters had succeeded in slowing their Confederate pursuers, gaining precious time for the civilians they sought to protect, the last leg of their exodus became the hardest. Winter was well underway, and snow covered much of the rough ground as the weary refugees trudged north. Confederate forces under Cooper kept pressure on the increasingly weak army of refugees, capturing or killing hundreds between Chustenahlah and the Kansas border. By most accounts, women and children had become targets and “were not spared” by the Confederate Indians and Texans in pursuit. Many perished from freezing temperatures and malnourishment.12 Those who finally made it to southeastern Kansas were in shambles. Frostbitten, hungry, and exhausted, the Indian refugees found little aid from Union authorities who had been quickly overwhelmed by the flood of desperate people. Men, women, and children, already sick, suffered through the rest of the winter. Housed in crude tents, they huddled around small fires in an attempt to stay warm. With dwindling amounts of wood for the fire, most suffered from cold-induced illnesses, including severe frostbite. Hundreds more died by spring. In the end, although the survivors had made it to Union territory, they continued to suffer not only throughout the winter of 1861–1862, but for the remainder of the conflict.13 The complexity and brutality of Opothleyahola’s trek north and its aftermath reflect the especially intense role race played in shaping irregular warfare on the western Trans-Mississippi border. Over eight thousand Native Americans and former slaves had fled north. Hundreds were captured by Confederate forces and hundreds more had been killed. Race fueled their crucible. It was exacting and brutal. Moreover, the Native Americans and African Americans’ plight had occurred in the first year of the war, well before any major battles. As they suffered and died on the western Trans-Mississippi border, politicians, commanders, and civilians on both sides were still contemplating the meaning and severity of the conflict. During the Civil War, nowhere else in the South had such a deadly exodus occurred. Although countless white civilians soon fled north or south and suffered in refugee camps, they rarely faced the daunting prospect of capture, pursuit, and death.14 In addition to an ever-increasing stream of Indian, black, and white refugees, intense combat along forested rivers and rugged hills came to typify the irregular war on the border. Confederate guerrillas had become adept at evading Federal patrols by melting quickly into the landscape before their victims could mount any serious counterattack. In light of these tactical difficulties, Union commanders found the “skulking” abilities of their Indian allies ideally suited for 88

Race and Irregular Warfare

combating Confederate guerrillas. Union Major E.C. Ellithorpe put such able scouts to good use in the Indian Territory’s harsh terrain. During the Union’s ill-fated 1862 “Indian Expedition” into the territory, Ellithorpe’s Native American soldiers repeatedly proved themselves to be outstanding irregular fighters. In one case, he had located a small force of Confederate guerrillas in a “thickly timbered bottom” near the Verdigris River in the Cherokee Nation. “The brush was so thick that I dared not undertake to penetrate without first learning the strength of the enemy,” Ellithorpe wrote, “and to do this was a difficult task not having any cannon to shell the woods.” He resorted to his Indian scouts. They crept silently through the brush to gauge the enemy’s strength, and thanks to their valuable intelligence, he ordered a successful attack the following morning. “Here I saw the value of the Indian as a daring scout,” he later wrote.15 For most Union soldiers, experiences in the brush were far different. Even on horseback, Federal cavalryman Chester L. White suffered directly from the difficult terrain. Soon after an engagement with Gen. Stand Watie’s Confederate Indians, White got lost in the dense undergrowth. “I got entangled in the d-dst place I ever got into nothing but Grapevines—rattlesnakes and wood-ticks,” White lamented, “after trying for about an hour to get out I finally succeeded in doing so by jumping my horse down a perpendicular bank 15 feet into a swampy creek where I was not much better off than before.”16 As the Indian Expedition continued, Union authorities hoped to move Native American civilian refugees back to their homes in the Cherokee Nation. In July, Gen. James Blunt told Col. William Weer to survey the land through northeastern Indian Territory. “As it is desirable to return the refugee Indians now in Kansas to their homes as soon as practicable,” Blunt ordered, “you will therefore take measures to ascertain if the corn crop in the Indian Territory of the present season will be sufficient to subsist them.” He also ordered Weer to pressure Cherokee Chief John Ross to reconsider his position with the Confederacy. Part of Ross’s concerns reflected those of Native American civilians throughout eastern Indian Territory. According to a Union officer who conducted talks directly with the embattled Cherokee chief, he was “very much concerned about the people of his nation, and anxious that the United States Government should send sufficient force . . . to protect them from lawless bands that are daily threatening them, committing robberies and murders.” Ross also showed considerable fear for “his own personal safety and the safety of his family.” In the end, though, with the Union army’s strong show of force in the territory, Blunt would gain the chief ’s careful cooperation and that of over fifteen hundred Cherokee civilians.17 But regaining Ross’s tepid loyalty was the expedition’s only success. As Weer’s motley army of Native Americans, German immigrants, and Midwestern farm boys moved south through northeastern Indian Territory, they met stubborn resistance from both regular and irregular Confederates. Guerrilla bands from southwest Missouri, most notably the group led by Thomas R. Livingston, teamed with Gen. Stand Watie’s regular forces to frustrate Federal progress. Trudging through thick brush and across numerous creeks and rivers while being constantly harassed by guerrilla bands and Confederate pickets, the Union expedition slowed considerably. Moreover, by the time Weer’s Yankees had reached the outskirts of Fort Gibson in mid-July, they found desolation. Anticipating the Union assault, Confederate Gen. Albert Pike had ordered his troops to set fire to a four-mile radius of prairie and brush surrounding the fort. The especially hot and dry conditions (one soldier reported a likely exaggerated 125 degrees) only added to the miserable conditions.18 The Confederates, meanwhile, took full advantage of the adverse environmental conditions. In a letter to Confederate Secretary of War George W. Randolph, Gen. Albert Pike made clear the harassing actions taken against the Union expedition and carefully noted what, in the end, would prove decisive in thwarting any further Union advance. “The excessive drought, the utter 89

Matthew M. Stith

destruction of corn and grass, the intense heat, and the scarcity of water may prove our best allies,” Pike reported. Indeed, he continued, thanks to the environment, “no large force of the enemy can march now any distance into this country.”19 Col. William Weer’s proclivity for whiskey, his habit of staying where none but “putrid, stinking water” was available to his men, and the subsequent discontent among his troops led second-in-command Col. Frederick Salomon to take action. Salomon, a German immigrant, had seen enough. “I have stood by with arms folded and seen my men fade and fall away from me like the leaves in autumn because I thought myself powerless to save them,” Salomon explained, “I will look upon this scene no longer.” He removed his superior officer, took command of the expedition, and promptly ordered an evacuation of the Cherokee Nation.20 Nearly three thousand Native American refugees followed Salomon’s retreating army north where they joined those who had fled to Kansas with Opothleyahola’s band in the winter of 1861. “They had been robbed of all their means of subsistence,” Indian leaders noted in a letter to Cherokee Chief John Ross, and following the Union army into southeast Kansas was the only option. Although large armies were mostly absent from the Cherokee Nation by late 1862, the area was, once again, “overrun by guerrilla bands; committing every conceivable depredation.” Most able-bodied Indian men mustered into Union regiments, while their wives and children remained in a poorly supplied refugee camp along a wooded creek near Fort Scott, Kansas, where they subsisted on what little food and shelter the federal fort could provide. Their condition remained both pitiable and deadly, especially as winter set in. The refugees suffered immeasurably due to poor shelter and bad weather. Although Gen. James Blunt took temporary charge of supplying the growing number of refugees camped near the fort, he was unable to secure appropriate shelter. “When the fall rains came on and the winter frosts,” lamented Cherokee leadership, “these women and children were thus exposed and were most miserably clad.” Hundreds died. The fields surrounding the refugee camp became a vast unmarked graveyard filled with men, women, and children. Intense guerrilla war had again kept them from rebuilding their homes in the Cherokee Nation while harsh environmental conditions killed them.21 That fall, the Fort Scott Bulletin published an editorial titled “Lo! The Poor Indians,” in which the editor lamented, “These women and children, squatted down in the timber, in our vicinity, have selected this locality as a place of safety, and security, against the marauders of their own nationality in the rebel army.” The Indians were still not safe, though better off than if these “suffering creatures [had remained] in their own country.” The situation was bleak. “Unless something is done for them very soon,” he worried, “these poor people will before the winter is over, make one move more, to the country where they will be troubled no longer by the wicked, and where the weary rest forever.” They needed better shelter and new clothes to survive the winter, but such materials had to come from civilian donors who were themselves starving and freezing. Hundreds of refugees continued to trickle in throughout the winter, sometimes in groups as large as six hundred people.22 While Union commanders struggled to reconcile the Indian refugee problem, they came to a radical solution to help combat the persistent and increasingly frustrating guerrilla problem on the border: turn some of the hundreds of escaped Missouri slaves into soldiers. Operating under such a mindset, Kansas Senator, and sometimes general, James H. Lane created without permission the 1st Kansas Colored Volunteer Regiment, which operated informally outside of Union authorities until the Emancipation Proclamation took effect on January 1, 1863. This radical and extralegal regiment of former slaves had been ordered to hunt Confederate guerrillas just inside the Missouri border. Working from reports they had received from locals that a large guerrilla force was in the area, the counter-guerrilla patrol of over two hundred men discovered over a hundred guerrillas accompanying a small Confederate contingent moving just inside the Missouri state line. The 90

Race and Irregular Warfare

intense fight that followed at Island Mound, Missouri, on October 29, reflected not only African American aptitude in combat but also the integral role race played in irregular warfare. It was also the first significant engagement between black troops and the Confederacy.23 The 1st Kansas quickly made contact with the guerrilla force. Most of the ensuing battle happened in the brush and included especially hard fighting at very close proximity. In what had become typical for Union anti-guerrilla patrols, the first day proved to be, as one Federal officer quipped, full of “desultory skirmishes.” The Confederate irregulars had employed their chief strategy of hiding in the brush just out of range or sight of Union muskets. By the next morning, the frustrated 1st Kansas took the offensive. A brutal chase followed as guerrillas yelled above the ruckus of battle “come on, you damned niggers.” The irony of the moment was lost on neither Union soldiers nor officers for, just as guerrillas issued such challenges, they were riding on horseback to escape from the marching black troops. By afternoon, the deadly cat and mouse game had gone over four miles through thick brush, but the chase finally stagnated and many of the irregulars had escaped. As the Union troops returned to camp, the guerrillas launched a counterattack. More intense fighting ensued. Union commanders quickly sought to control a nearby mound and sent twenty-five 1st Kansas troops to hold the hill. Upon seeing the high ground compromised, the bulk of the mounted guerrilla force then rapidly turned toward the small band of Union troops and charged the hill. “Nothing dismayed, the little band turned upon their foes,” a Union officer reported, “and as their guns cracked many a riderless [horse] swung off to one side.” The guerrillas soon demanded the small band of black soldiers surrender, but to do so would mean certain death. According to a Union officer who witnessed the ordeal, “I never saw a braver sight than that handful of brave men fighting 117 men who were all around and in amongst them. Not one surrendered or gave up a weapon.”24 Nearly as soon as the nasty little skirmish had started, more Union soldiers charged the hill to relieve their besieged comrades. At this, the now outnumbered guerrilla force abandoned their attack and set fire to the dry brush to thwart the Federal counterattack. As they retreated, the guerrillas tried to finish off any wounded Union soldiers. One Federal lieutenant, hit in the leg by buckshot, fell awkwardly into their path. According to a witness, “one of the cowardly demons dismounted, and making the remark that he would finish the damned son of a bitch, placed his revolver to his head and fired.” The guerrilla’s bullet glanced off the Union officer’s head and ripped open a cavity between his skull and scalp until it exited from behind. Although grievously wounded, the man had survived. In the end, as was nearly always the case, the vast majority of guerrillas made their escape.25 The fight at Island Mound illustrates the tactical and racial nature of irregular warfare on the Trans-Mississippi border. Within just over a year after Fort Sumter, white officers and black soldiers at Island Mound had fought side-by-side against Confederate guerrillas. Moreover, the engagement in western Missouri occurred before any formal declaration of emancipation. In his official report concerning the skirmish, white Union Capt. R. G. Ward exclaimed that those wounded and killed African American troops “deserve the lasting gratitude of all the friends of the cause and race.” Island Mound had been a fitting baptism into war for the 1st Kansas. For the next year, they continued to chase guerrillas in western Missouri where they remained enmeshed in the violent irregular war that had inundated the region. The regiment’s experience only worsened as the war progressed.26 Four years of intense, racially fueled irregular warfare proved especially destructive along Indian Territory’s eastern edge. According to a Bureau of Ethnology report, the Cherokee Nation in northeast Indian Territory suffered “more desolation and ruin than perhaps any other community.” Regular and irregular warfare perpetuated by both Union and Confederate forces had reduced the countryside to a “blackened and desolate waste” where civilians suffered “want, 91

Matthew M. Stith

misery, and the elements.” Indeed, the Cherokee Nation alone lost nearly seven thousand people. Most of the remaining fourteen thousand became refugees after they lost their homes and livestock during the bloody episode in eastern Indian Territory. Their former home, continued the report, “was distinguishable from the virgin prairie only by the scorched and blackened chimneys and the . . . now neglected fields.” According to historian Clarissa Confer, the Cherokee Nation had “suffered almost total destruction . . . and the entire social fabric had disintegrated.”27 With depopulation and destruction came the fall of slavery on much of the border. Even toward the end, slaveholders scrambled to preserve their institution by fleeing south. “Though slaves had become a very uncertain kind of property,” one Arkansas Unionist noted during the war, “men would abandon home, kindred, friends, every thing, in fact, to save their negroes.” But in the end, thousands of slaves had secured their own freedom. The border’s increasingly anarchic atmosphere played no small role in providing them opportunities to escape. Some would join the 1st Kansas Colored Volunteers and other Union regiments, while still more crowded into Union refugee camps along the border. A common factor for each remained the brutal irregular war that ravaged the border. For former slaves who took up arms against the Confederacy and for those who fled from its confines, irregular war defined their Civil War experience.28 The Civil War on the western Trans-Mississippi border is exemplified by race and irregular warfare. Soldiers, guerrillas, and civilians together engaged in a difficult conflict that made everyone a combatant. Whites, blacks, and Indians struggled to both kill and survive. Unlike anywhere else during the Civil War, a complex mixture of races and cultures clashed in what had devolved into one of the most brutal regions of the war. As reflected by Opothleyahola’s exodus to southeast Kansas, the style of fighting in Indian Territory, and the 1st Kansas Volunteers’ counterinsurgency fights at Island Mound, the Rader Farm, and elsewhere, war on the border persisted in a racially charged, exacting, and altogether irregular fashion. The thousands of men, women, and children of all races and cultures who poured into refugee camps further complicated the already complex military situation. This pocket of the Civil War on the western margins of the Trans-Mississippi reveals a kind of conflict reminiscent of the ruthless Indian Wars that came before and after the conflict, and it foreshadows especially complicated and deadly wars defined by civilian, racial, and irregular contours in the twentieth century.

Notes 1 Kansas Adjutant General’s Office, Military History of Kansas Regiments During the War for the Suppression of the Great Rebellion (Leavenworth, KS: W. S. Burke, 1870), 409; Tom Growell and Eliza Jameson interviews in William N. Pearson, “Sherwood: The Forgotten Village,” 198, R750, Western Historical Manuscript Collection, University of Missouri, Rolla; Memoir of Hugh Thompson, Co. C., Third Wisconsin Cavalry, in Hugh Thompson, “Baxter Springs as a Military Post,” n. d., 11–12, vertical file: Sherwood File 8, Jasper County Records Center, Carthage, MO; U.S. War Department, War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies (Washington, DC: GPO, 1880–1901), ser. 1, v. 22, 321–322. (hereinafter cited as OR); Wiley Britton, The Union Indian Brigade in the Civil War (Kansas City: Franklin Hudson Pub., 1922), 176. See, also, Robert W. Lull, Civil War General and Indian Fighter James M. Williams: Leader of the 1st Kansas Colored Volunteer Infantry and the 8th U.S. Cavalry (Denton: University of North Texas Press, 2013), 68–69. 2 Kansas Adjutant General’s Office, Military History of Kansas Regiments, 409; OR 22(2): 849; OR 22(1): 321–322. 3 For thriving scholarship on race and violence during Bleeding Kansas, see Jonathan Earle and Diane Mutti Burke, eds., Bleeding Kansas, Bleeding Missouri: The Long Civil War on the Border (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2013), Kristen Tegtmeier Oertel, Bleeding Borders: Race, Gender, and Violence in Pre-Civil War Kansas (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2009), Jeremy Neely, The Border Between Them: Violence and Reconstruction on the Kansas-Missouri Line (Columbia: University of Missouri

92

Race and Irregular Warfare

4

5

6

7

8

9 10

11 12

13

14

15

16

17

Press, 2007), and Nicole Etcheson, Bleeding Kansas: Contested Liberty in the Civil War Era (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2004). Carl von Clausewitz, On War, ed. and trans., Michael Howard and Peter Paret (Princeton University Press, 1976), 480. See, also, Hew Strachan, Clausewitz’s On War: A Biography (New York: Atlantic Books, 2007), 183–185. Michael Fellman, “At the Nihilist Edge: Reflections on Guerrilla Warfare during the American Civil War” in Views from the Dark Side of American History (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2011), 59. For an excellent discussion of warfare in the midst of a cultural milieu of distrust and hatred, see James D. Drake, King Philip’s War: Civil War in New England, 1675–1676 (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1999), 6–7. For the most recent scholarship on the Civil War in Indian Territory, see Mary Jane Warde, When the Wolf Came: The Civil War and the Indian Territory (Fayetteville: University of Arkansas Press, 2013), Clarissa W. Confer, The Cherokee Nation in the Civil War (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2007), Christine Schultz White and Benton R. White, Now the Wolf Has Come: The Creek Nation in the Civil War (College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 1996), and Clint Crowe, “War in the Nations: The Devastation of a Removed People during the American Civil War,” (Ph.D. dissertation, University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, 2009). See Albert Castel, A Frontier State at War: Kansas, 1861–1865 (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1958); Michael Fellman, Inside War; Daniel E. Sutherland, “Guerrillas: The Real War in Arkansas,” Arkansas Historical Quarterly 3 (Autumn 1993): 257–285; Clarissa Confer, The Cherokee Nation in the Civil War (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2007); Mary Jane Warde, When the Wolf Came: The Civil War and the Indian Territory (Fayetteville: University of Arkansas Press, 2013). For the best work on the racial nature of the war on the border, see Mark Lause, Race and Radicalism in the Union Army (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2009). See, also, Bryce D. Benedict, Jayhawkers: The Civil War Brigade of James Henry Lane (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2009), and Michael Fellman, Inside War: The Guerrilla Conflict in Missouri during the American Civil War (New York: Oxford University Press, 1989), 65–73. See, especially, Lause, Race and Radicalism in the Union Army, 4–5, quote on page 4. Warde, When the Wolf Came, 66–70; Lause, Race and Radicalism in the Union Army, 56–60. See, also, William G. McLoughlin, After the Trail of Tears: The Cherokees’ Struggle for Sovereignty, 1839–1880 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1993), 193–195. OR 8 (1): 6, 21, 24; Britton, The Union Indian Brigade in the Civil War, 43–44. See, also, Warde, When the Wolf Came, 77. Jay Monaghan, Civil War on the Western Border, 1854–1865 (Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press, 1955), 226–227; Warde, When the Wolf Came, 83; Matthew M. Stith, “ ‘The Deplorable Condition of the Country’: Nature, Society, and War on the Trans-Mississippi Frontier,” Civil War History 58 (September 2012): 331–332. George A. Cutler to William G. Coffin, September 30, 1862, U.S. Interior Department, Report of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, 1862 (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1863), 139; Wiley Britton, Civil War on the Border, vol. 1, 174; A. B. Campbell to Joseph B. Barnes, February 5, 1862, Report of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, 1862, 151–152; William G. Coffin to William P. Dole, February 13, 1862, Ibid., p. 156. See, also, Dean Banks, “Civil War Refugees from Indian Territory, in the North, 1861–1864,” Chronicles of Oklahoma 41 (Autumn 1963): 287–290; Lause, Race and Radicalism, 60–61; Stith, “Deplorable Condition of the Country,” 330–331. For scholarship on the refugee problem in the Trans-Mississippi Theater, see, especially, John F. Bradbury “ ‘Buckwheat Cake Philanthropy’: Refugees and the Union Army in the Ozarks,” Arkansas Historical Quarterly 57 (Autumn 1998): 233–254, and Dean Banks, “Civil War Refugees from Indian Territory, in the North, 1861–1864,” Chronicles of Oklahoma 41 (Autumn 1963): 286–298. E.C. Ellithorpe Journal, July 14, 1862, Wilson’s Creek National Battlefield, Missouri. For a general overview of the “Indian Expedition” of 1862, see, especially, Confer, Cherokee Nation, 76–82, and Warde, When the Wolf Came, 104–111. White Papers, Pearce Civil War Collection, 1862, 2005.055, Narvarro College, Corsicana, Texas. See, also, Ozarks Civil War, Springfield-Greene County Library District, Springfield, Missouri, at www. ozarkscivilwar.org/archives/3551 James G. Blunt to William Weer, July 12, 1862, pt. 2, entry 3154, RG393, National Archives and Records Administration [hereinafter NARA]; OR 13(1): 162.

93

Matthew M. Stith 18 Robert T. McMahan diary entry, October 23, 1862, in Michael Banasik, ed., Reluctant Cannoneer: The Diary of Robert T. McMahan of the Twenty-fifth Independent Ohio Light Artillery (Iowa City, IA: Camp Pope, 2000), 43–48. 19 OR 13(1): 860–861. 20 Frederick Salomon to the Commanders comprising the Indian Expedition, July 18, 1862, pt. 2, entry 3154, RG393, NARA; Confer, Cherokee Nation in the Civil War, 76–80. 21 Letter to John Ross, January 8, 1863, in Gary E. Moulton, ed., Papers of Chief John Ross, vol. 2 (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1985), 528. 22 Bulletin (Fort Scott), November 29, 1862; Papers of John Ross, vol. 2, 539. Most fighting-age men from these refugees enlisted in the First, Second, and Third Indian regiments. 23 Diane Mutti Burke, “ ‘Slavery Dies Hard’: Enslaved Missourians’ Struggle for Freedom” in Bleeding Kansas, Bleeding Missouri: The Long Civil War on the Border, eds. Jonathan Earle and Diane Mutti Burke (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2013), 159–160; Lull, Civil War General and Indian Fighter, 53–60. 24 OR 53 (1): 456–457. See, also, Bruce Nicholls, Guerrilla Warfare in Civil War Missouri, 1862 (Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Co., 2004), 178–179. 25 OR 53 (1): 457. 26 Ibid., 457–458. For the best treatment regarding the relationship between white officers and black soldiers, see Joseph T. Glatthaaar, Forged in Battle: The Civil War Alliance of Black Soldiers and White Officers (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1990). 27 Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology to the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, 1880 (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1887), 376; Confer, Cherokee Nation in the Civil War, 145. See, also, Minges, Slavery in the Cherokee Nation, 160; Lause, Race and Radicalism, 129. For population, see, especially, Russell Thornton, The Cherokees: A Population History (Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press, 1990). 28 William Baxter, Pea Ridge and Prairie Grove; Or, Scenes and Incidents of the War in Arkansas (Fayetteville: University of Arkansas Press, [1864] 2000), 64.

94

8 BOTTOM RAIL ON TOP Black Union Soldiers in the Army of Occupation, 1865–1867 Donald R. Shaffer

The service of African Americans in the Union Army was one of the more dramatic stories to emerge from the Civil War. At the beginning, the near consensus outside the black community and a small coterie of radical abolitionists was the conflict was to be a white man’s war. While supporters of the Union and the Confederacy did not see eye to eye on much, both initially agreed the war had nothing to do with slavery, but with the South’s desire for independence and the North’s desire to preserve the Union. To the extent that African Americans would be involved, conventional wisdom held, it would be as manual laborers, personal servants, or in other support roles for the armies, certainly not as armed soldiers. But as the conflict developed, it became apparent to northern leaders that to save the Union, slavery must end, and with the unquenchable need for new troops, that African Americans must enlist as solders. In this capacity, black Union troops repeatedly proved themselves as good as their white counterparts, both in combat and otherwise, making supporters of many white Northerners who originally had been skeptical that they were suited for military service. So it is little surprise that as the war wound down and southern territory increasingly came under Union control that black soldiers would serve in the army of occupation. Doing so represented the apex of their quest in the Civil War to destroy slavery, which began by mopping up the remnants of the peculiar institution wherever it lurked. As most African Americans under arms had been slaves themselves before enlisting, it was especially significant that their status as soldiers in the army of occupation put them in a position of power over their former owners and other white Southerners. The phenomenon has become symbolized by the story of a black Union soldier encountering his former owner, a rebel, now a prisoner of war held by federal forces, and gleefully telling him, “Hello, massa; bottom rail top dis time!”1 While enjoying the role reversal, African American troops also found their service difficult during the occupation. White Southerners regularly challenged their authority, sometimes violently, and they found themselves increasingly at odds with their white officers. Likewise, occupation duty sometimes took black soldiers far from home at a moment when their families greatly needed them in the difficult transition from slavery to freedom. But it also allowed them to be in a position to lead and advocate for black communities where currently stationed, and push for suffrage and equal rights for their race in the first years of Reconstruction. The service of black Union soldiers in the army of occupation began even before the end of the Civil War. Though African Americans distinguished themselves in combat in the Civil War, 95

Donald R. Shaffer

proving they would fight and die as bravely as whites, skepticism of their value persisted and many Union commanders were inclined to relegate them to garrison duty, while free white soldiers fought the Confederates. This was especially true in the Western Theater, where generals like William Tecumseh Sherman kept African American units out of their campaign armies, relegating them to guarding lines of communication and garrisoning towns and military installations away from the front.2 The participation of these men in this capacity began in earnest with the final collapse of the Confederacy in Spring 1865. African American troops in Virginia, who unlike their western counterparts, saw fierce combat in 1864 and 1865, were among the first Union troops to enter Richmond after it fell in April 1865. Richmond residents that did not flee witnessed the novel sight of black troops entering the Confederate capital and then performing guard duty in various locations around the city.3 This was an image that would repeat itself across the South over the remainder of 1865 as Union forces fanned out over the South to reassert the authority of the federal government over the region. In Wilmington, N.C., “They stepped like lords & conquerors,” wrote one Union officer, “The frantic demonstration of the negro population will never die out of my memory. Their cheers & heartfelt ‘God bress ye’s’ & cries of ‘De chains is broke; De chains is broke,’ mingled sublimely with lusty shouts of our brave soldiery.”4 Indeed, black soldiers became an integral part of the occupation of the South, coming to compose a much higher percentage of manpower than in the Union Army during the war. During the Civil War, African Americans made up about eleven percent of the Union Army. By fall of 1865, with the first wave of demobilization largely complete, black soldiers’ percentage in the residual force had increased to thirty-six percent of the total.5 African Americans proved ideal to retain as occupation troops because they had not joined the army until 1863 or 1864, meaning they still had considerable time left on their three-year enlistment terms when the war ended. Which contrasted with most white Union soldiers who had enlisted in 1861 or 1862, and whose original enlistments had already expired or were nearing completion at war’s end. These white soldiers, with few exceptions, were eager to depart for civilian life. The federal government proved quite willing to accommodate them because of its desire to reduce the army as quickly as possible to save money. But it needed to retain some soldiers for occupation duty, and so while most whites quickly shed their uniforms, the Union Army retained a higher percentage of black regiments for service in the army of occupation. With certain exceptions, African American regiments largely occupied locations near where they had ended up at war’s end. The most notable exception were black soldiers in Virginia serving in the all-black 25th Corps, about ten thousand men in all, recruited mostly from Kentucky, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, and the northern states. They travelled by ship to Texas after the war. The War Department mainly sent them there to pressure French forces that had occupied Mexico and installed a puppet emperor while the United States was embroiled in civil war. In terms of physical conditions, the black soldiers sent to Texas faced the most challenging experience of occupation forces. While there were no clashes with French forces in Mexico, black soldiers in Texas suffered in primitive conditions, finding virtually no facilities to accommodate their stay at the border. They lacked sufficient water, sturdy shelter, nutritious food, and adequate medical care, while spending months suffering under the oppressive summer heat. Under these stressful conditions, hundreds of black soldiers died of disease and those that survived endured miserable conditions for many months or even years until their discharge. For those outside of Texas, the main challenge was not primitive and unhealthy conditions (although they sometimes existed), but the hostility of white Southerners, who saw their presence as not only an affront to the region’s racial etiquette, but they also perceived it as a deadly reminder of the potential for racial revolt. One of the greatest fears in the antebellum South had been a 96

Bottom Rail on Top

mass slave revolt like St. Domingue in the 1790s that had ushered in the Haitian Revolution. They believed African Americans without slavery would inevitably embark on barbaric race war, and many Confederates had interpreted the recruitment of black soldiers into the Union Army during the war as an attempt by Lincoln’s administration to foment just such a conflict. White Southerners feared the African American troops in their midst and doubted the ability of their white officers to keep them under control. Their anxiety set the stage for conflict across the occupied South during the first years of Reconstruction. Although its exact nature and intensity varied from state to state, where white Southerners encountered black soldiers in the army of occupation, conflict followed. White Southerners complained of offenses by African American troops, both real and imagined. One letter from North Carolina was typical, stating they were “leaving their posts and roaming through the country, visiting the houses of citizens, demanding meat, vegetables, and other articles of food and committing depredations upon their Gardens and Fields.”6 The underlying truth, however, was regardless of the veracity of such complaints, black troops continuously violated the racial hierarchy of the region by using their position of authority to advocate for themselves and other African Americans; in the process, they became leaders to the newly emancipated black communities. The planter elite, even without slavery, remained determined to reassert their power and control the lives and labor of ex-slaves by use of legal codes that restricted their new freedom; by forcibly apprenticing black children, through annual labor contracts that bound black laborers to particular plantations; and by generally not permitting them to work at any other occupation than agricultural labor or domestic servant. By challenging the dominance of white Southerners and their control of the economy, society, and politics, black occupation forces upset these plans. As an irritated Mississippi planter complained, “The Negro Soldiery here are constantly telling our Negroes, that for the next year, the Government will give them lands, provisions, Stock & all things necessary to carry on business for themselves.”7 The planter feared that the soldiers encouraging the independence of former slaves was a prelude to the feared race war that would follow emancipation. “The whole south is resting on a volcano,” he wrote, reflecting the viewpoint of many white Southerners. “If the Negro troops are not removed from our mids pretty Soon . . . trouble of direst kind will befall us—They will stimulate the negroes to insurrection & will lend a helping hand.”8 Such complaints were not just limited to the former Confederacy. White Southerners, many wartime Unionists in the loyal slave states, also complained once the war was over about the black troops in their midst. For example, both Missouri and Kentucky as loyal slave states had seen significant African American recruitment, especially during the latter stages of the war. The rapid recruitment of black men, many of them slaves, made whites in these states, even Unionists, nervous and angry at the federal government for what they saw as breaking its promise early in the war not to interfere with slavery where it already existed, as long as their state did not join the rebellion. As Aaron Astor puts it, “in the white imagination the suddenness of the black enlistment heralded the sort of disorderly racial catastrophe befitting the onset of a slave uprising.”9 As in the ex-Confederacy, such fears in the former loyal slave states stemmed from black soldiers’ obvious political consciousness and advocacy for African American civilians. It did not help that African American troops in Kentucky and Missouri tended not to be sent out of state, but retained at home during the war to guard against Confederate raids and maintain civil order in regions, and that despite their overall loyalty to the Union, still had numerous rebel sympathizers. And since they did their wartime service close to home, black Union soldiers remained in Kentucky and Missouri after the war making even wartime Unionists feel that despite their loyalty, they too faced a postwar military occupation aimed at advancing the political agenda of the Radical Republicans.10 97

Donald R. Shaffer

Opponents of the presence of these black federal soldiers responded with complaints to Union authorities, and with acts of violence directed at the soldiers and their families. Such violence against the families of black soldiers was especially common in Kentucky, where men enlisting in the army often were forced to leave their families behind on their owners’ plantations when they enlisted because the state was exempt from the Emancipation Proclamation and slavery did not end there until the final ratification of the 13th Amendment in December 1865. Violence directed against African Americans in the Union Army became all too commonplace in the South, often varying from isolated and spontaneous attacks to large-scale premeditated riots. A good example of how white Southern anger could boil over into violence came when black troops arrived in Columbus, Georgia, in January 1866. The town had been under occupation since the previous August when white Union soldiers of the 151st Illinois Infantry had arrived. Tensions quickly arose in Columbus, aggravated by the fact that its interior location in the easternmost portion of Georgia, away from Sherman’s March to the Sea in late 1864, had meant it had not even seen Union forces until late summer 1865, let alone African Americans in federal uniform. The arrival of black troops in early 1866 proved a great shock to the white residents. They initially tried to rid themselves of the perceived menace by complaining to Union authorities that the black soldiers were disorderly and insolent. It did not help matters that the African American troops interfered with their efforts to reassert their dominance over the town’s black population. “When colored Soldiers are about,” a black minister proudly wrote, “[white people] are afraid to kick colored women, and abuse colored people on the Streets, as they usually do.”11 Within a month of the arrival of the men in Columbus, Georgia, tensions boiled over into violence. On February 12, 1866, a drunken ruffian shot a member of the 103rd U.S. Colored Infantry in an unprovoked attack as the soldier was walking down the street. The black soldier survived, but the shooting triggered a riot. Following the example of the assailant, hundreds of white residents of Columbus poured into the streets, many of them armed and, in the words of one Union officer, “cursing and swearing to attack the troops and drive every ‘Yankee’ out of town.” Two subsequent attacks followed. The only way that Union authorities could end the violence was to remove the black troops and bring white soldiers back.12 Violence against black Union soldiers climaxed in the Memphis riot of May 1866. Like other places, African American troops in Memphis, Tennessee, had become leaders of the community of freed people that gravitated to the city rather than stay in the rural trappings of past enslavement. They helped solidify the independence of the city’s black community by assisting in the building of churches, schools, orphanages, and other institutions to lessen African Americans’ reliance on and control by the city’s white leaders. The black community came to see the troops of their race stationed in the city as their advisers and protectors. Under their protection, Memphis’ black population mushroomed from three thousand in 1860 to around twenty thousand at war’s end.13 Notably, some were family members of the black soldiers stationed at Fort Pickering, which with the other migrants tended to congregate in the southern part of the city. The arrival of large numbers of African Americans alarmed the white population, particularly the ethnically diverse, upwardly mobile inhabitants of South Memphis, where many of the refugees settled. The whites of this section of the city saw the freed slaves as a potential public burden and social menace, especially because the city’s cotton economy was doing poorly in the wake of the war. But they came to harbor a special dislike of the black soldiers, who they believed (correctly) were encouraging the freed people not to accept a return of prewar racial etiquette. The troops set a personal example by refusing to make way for white people on the public sidewalks or treat them with fawning deference that had been customary before the Civil War. In one particularly trenchant encounter, that no doubt made white Southerners’ blood boil, 98

Bottom Rail on Top

a white female Tennessean was accosted by black soldiers who told her, “We’s all ekal now. Git out o’ our way, white woman.”14 The racial tension in the city intensified when in October 1865, Gen. Nathan A.M. Dudley, the Freedmen’s Bureau superintendent in Memphis decided that the number of black refugees in the city was unsustainable and ordered that African Americans without visible means of support be arrested and compelled to accept work contracts as plantation laborers in the countryside. His order failed because when bureau personnel went through the black section of south Memphis informing residents that only those with adequate means of support could remain, black troops followed afterward asserting that the Freedmen’s Bureau had no authority to implement the policy. The black citizens of South Memphis followed the soldiers’ advice because of the close bonds that had developed between the two groups. Besides having family among the refugees, they interacted during the soldiers’ off-duty hours in churches, schools, taverns, private homes, and on the streets. Indeed, the soldiers were a key source of economic support to the black community with army pay and supplies flowing from Fort Pickering into south Memphis. In the process, the dividing line between the two groups blurred. Military rations and clothing provided to the African American community, according to one scholar, “made it more difficult for the casual observer to distinguish between soldiers and black civilians.”15 The city’s white population eventually realized that Union authorities proved unable to remove the black rural migrants from Memphis. But as long as the African American soldiers remained, white Tennesseans dared not resort to organized violence. So it is little surprise that when the Union authorities finally mustered out Fort Pickering’s black soldiers on April 30, 1866, that within days the city’s police (a force with many Confederate veterans) and other members of a hastily assembled all-white posse attacked the refugees in south Memphis, aiming to drive them from the city. The pretext for their action was a deadly confrontation with recently discharged black veterans from Fort Pickering after the ex-Confederate dominated police force attempted to arrest a black hack driver after he collided with another carriage. Union authorities quickly disarmed and detained former black soldiers returning to the fort. With no protection from black or white Union troops, the police and posse went on a rampage through the black migrant quarter that lasted two days. By the time white Union forces belatedly restored order in Memphis on May 4, 1866, forty-six African Americans were dead, seventy to eighty were injured, five women raped, hundreds robbed of their possessions, and black churches, schools, and homes burned to the ground. Fourteen of the dead were black Union veterans that had not retreated to the safety of Fort Pickering, and many of the black civilians targeted in the riot had ties to the Union army. Hence, the riot in Memphis saw the very conscious targeting of black people, former soldiers and civilians, connected to the hated Yankee army, once African American troops could no longer protect them.16 The Memphis riot demonstrated the virulent hatred of white Southerners; black Union soldiers also suffered the growing indifference and even hostility of whites in the Union army, including their white officers. Only a handful of African Americans received commissions with most of them serving as staff officers such as chaplains and surgeons, outside the chain of command. With only a few exceptions, black Union soldiers were under the command of whites. During the war, some black soldiers bonded with their white officers. A few white officers came from abolitionist backgrounds, predisposing them to sympathize with their men, while others bonded with black troops because of the common danger of being regarded as little better as brigands by the Confederates, who had threatened death to the white Union officers captured in command of black troops, and re-enslavement or death of the African Americans themselves. But once the war was over, the bonds between black soldiers and their white officers began to fray because they no longer shared a common cause. With the Confederacy defeated, white officers tended to see the situation as having reached closure. They did not share the view of black 99

Donald R. Shaffer

troops, who while glad about the Union victory and the end of slavery, saw the end of the war as merely the start of a new struggle to achieve equal rights for their race in American society. It also did not help matters that once the war ended, and black soldiers settled into their role in the army of occupation, many white officers began to enforce stricter discipline on their troops than they had before. Such officers believed that with the return of peace that the boredom of garrison duty would lead to behavior problems, which would impinge on the order and readiness of their individual outfits. The problem was the officers were no longer dealing with callow recruits, fresh from the plantation and slavery, insecure and even overawed by the experience of soldiering. The new soldiers of 1863–1864 had become familiar with the army by 1865, had grown into their role as soldiers gaining confidence, and had come to realize their officers’ defects and weaknesses as leaders. Hence, the greater discipline often ended up causing the very problems it was supposed to prevent. Having proved their worth as soldiers during the war, both on and off the battlefield, African American troops had become more sensitive to treatment that emphasized the unequal relationship between officers and enlisted men. It offended their sense of honor that having proven their manhood in the war that suddenly their officers began to treat them as if the war had never happened and in essence as if they were newly recruited soldiers, inflicting painful and humiliating punishments for trivial as well as serious offenses. The reaction to the increase in discipline that black soldiers encountered during the era was in extreme cases mutiny. This was the case for free black troops from the North as well as units composed of recently liberated slaves from the South. Perhaps the most notorious postwar mutiny involving black troops occurred in Jacksonville, Florida, in late October 1865. Troops of the 3rd U.S. Colored Infantry, a Northern regiment recruited in Pennsylvania, rioted after seeing a comrade tied up by his thumbs for an offense that court-martial records never clearly specified, but that was probably insubordination. White officers quickly suppressed the mutiny, and executed several ringleaders after receiving a swift courts-martial. Yet, Jacksonville was merely an extreme example of the fact that, with the war over, black soldiers were less tolerant of punishments that offended their sense of manhood invigorated by wartime military service.17 Regardless of where they travelled, Texas or closer to home, some black soldiers resented being kept in the army. With the Civil War finished, they saw little reason to remain in service. “Garrison duty become a bore,” complained a black corporal from Rhode Island to a federal bureaucrat whom he hoped might secure him an early discharge. “My mission has so far been to my entire satisfaction and more has been done in such a short space of time, than I could have expected, and I now feel that all that I can do has been done.” In other words, with the Confederacy defeated and slavery ended, and having proved to themselves their manly worth as soldiers, most black troops wished to return to civilian life. They no doubt also noticed the rapid departure of white troops from the Union Army and wondered why they remained. Such puzzlement must have fed a renewed sense of worry that they, yet again, faced unfair treatment, while also suffering emasculation at the hands of white men. Indeed, when black soldiers—both former slaves and free men of color—wrote seeking to obtain an early discharge, they often couched their requests in terms of masculine responsibilities. In particular, these men complained that while still in the army they were unable to support their families properly. Having served and fought in a manly fashion, they now wished to care for their wives, children, and other family members like men. “The pecuniary circumstance of an aged grand mother and several orphaned sisters whose sole dependence is on my earnings, prompts me to solicit, with your influence, my honorable discharge,” wrote a Northern black soldier in an especially articulate letter requesting assistance in obtaining an early release.18 Less eloquent soldiers made similar appeals. An unnamed black soldier from South Carolina complained in January 1866 to Gen. Daniel E. Sickles that their sudden enlistment had forced the men of his 100

Bottom Rail on Top

regiment to leave their families without making adequate provisions for them, and they had since learned their loved ones were “Perishing for something to Eate.”19 Men who had left their families behind in slavery persisted in their eagerness to protect them from the caprice of ex-slaveholders. This rung especially true of soldiers from Kentucky, where slavery survived until the end of 1865. One group of men from that state serving with the 116th U.S. Colored Infantry wrote a desperate letter to President Andrew Johnson and Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton in May 1866 seeking discharges. They needed to go home to protect their families from their former owners and ensure their army pay reached them. They informed Johnson and Stanton that “thire is a Numbers of our famuleys has been turned out of Doors, and they has no place to lay thire heads and we has no way to healp them.”20 Blacks soldiers wanting to return to civilian life, growing discipline problems in black regiments, white Southerners pressuring Union authorities to be rid of them, and the expense of keeping wartime volunteers in service led to the gradual but steady dissolution of black Civil War units in the South, and their disappearance from the army of occupation. It is interesting that the soldiers of the 3rd U.S. Colored Infantry, whose unit experienced the most notorious postwar mutiny of African American troops, received discharges several days after the incident, except for the soldiers retained to face courts-martial. Additionally, as the months went by with little to no signs of a resumption of hostilities between North and South, the army of occupation reduced in size. Meanwhile, for black troops in Texas, after some months it was apparent that their presence had chastened the French into realizing that the days of their military occupation in Mexico were coming to an end. So federal authorities began to discharge black soldiers in earnest. By fall of 1866, only thirteen thousand African Americans remained in federal uniform, down from eighty-three thousand a year earlier (approximately one hundred and eighty thousand black men served in the Union army during the war). The black experience in the army of occupation came to a definitive close with the disbandment of the 117th U.S. Colored Infantry in Texas in August 1867.21 Interestingly, while their service in the Civil War would earn African Americans a permanent place in the peacetime U.S. military, as six (soon reduced to four) regiments were formed from veterans of the U.S. Colored Troops and new black recruits, these units would spend the next twenty-five years out west as participants in the Indian Wars. Although New Orleans initially served as a collection and transit point for African American recruits because it remained the most important southern city in the war’s aftermath, no peacetime black unit remained in the post-Reconstruction South. The presence of federal troops in the South itself would end following the controversial presidential election of 1876, part of the informal compromise that won Rutherford B. Hayes the acquiescence of the Democrats to be inaugurated president in March 1877. Eventually, black soldiers in the U.S. Army would make their way back into the South, not in an army of occupation, but stationed as part of the peacetime military base system (although tensions remained between them and white southern civilians). So, while the service of black Union soldiers in the army of occupation demonstrated a wonderful role reversal, giving them power over their former oppressors and allowing them to make positive contributions to former slaves emerging from bondage, it proved short lived and brought them great troubles as well. In particular, white Southerners were not willing to accept that things had changed, and fearful of the soldiers’ presence, complained about them to Union officials or even struck against them in violent acts both spontaneous and organized. African American troops, although most stayed close to where they ended the war, often journeyed great distances as a part of occupation duty, such as the 25th Corps ending up in Texas. Even for those closer to home, they sometimes faced growing tensions with their white officers and worries about distant families they could not assist. Some, therefore, tried to get home early, but eventually they all received their 101

Donald R. Shaffer

discharge from a government that at first thought they would be ideal to retain for this type of work, but increasingly realized that the presence of African American troops in the vanquished Confederacy brought financial and political burdens that outweighed the benefits of their service. As they left the army behind, black Union veterans would remain proud of their military service in the Civil War, including the army of occupation. As during the war, their postwar lives would be an ambiguous mixture of progress and setbacks. Union veterans would be over-represented among black officeholders in Reconstruction, but like other African American leaders would prove unable to prevent white Southerners from regaining control of state governments in the region, and ultimately deprive their race of most of its newly won civil rights. They would be accepted for membership in the Grand Army of the Republic, the main Union veterans’ organization, but would suffer from discrimination there and increasingly find the memory of their wartime service fading away in the larger society. Black veterans would be on the whole slightly better off than non-veteran black contemporaries and continue to be honored within their own community, but would die off faster than white Union and Confederate veterans, meaning relatively few enjoyed their status as heroes of their race or lived to collect the military pensions which by 1890 virtually all Union veterans became eligible for. So the struggle that characterized their time in the army of occupation continued in the years that followed, if perhaps not quite so dramatically as had been the case immediately following the Civil War.

Notes 1 Leon Litwack, Been in the Storm So Long: The Aftermath of Slavery (New York: Vintage Books, 1980), 2. 2 Ira Berlin, Joseph P. Reidy and Leslie S. Rowland, eds., Freedom: A Documentary History of Emancipation, 1861–1867, Series II: The Black Military Experience (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982), 519–520. 3 Joseph T. Glatthaar, Forged in Battle: The Civil War Alliance of Black Soldiers and White Officers (New York: The Free Press, 1990), 208. 4 Ibid. 5 Berlin et al., Freedom, 733. 6 Ibid., 738. 7 Ibid., 748. 8 Ibid. 9 Aaron Astor, Rebels on the Border: Civil War, Emancipation, and the Reconstruction of Kentucky and Missouri (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2012), 128. 10 Ibid., 121–145. 11 Berlin et al., Freedom, 757. 12 Ibid., 760. 13 James Gilbert Ryan, “The Memphis Riot of 1866: Terror in the Black Community during Reconstruction,” Journal of Negro History 62 (July 1977): 244. 14 Quoted in Bobby L. Lovett, “Memphis Riots: White Reaction to Blacks in Memphis, May 1865–July 1866,” Tennessee Historical Quarterly 38 (Spring 1979): 11–12. 15 Kevin W. Hardwick, “Your Old Father Abe Lincoln Is Dead and Damned: Black Soldiers and the Memphis Riot of 1866,” Journal of Social History 27 (Fall 1993): 113–115. 16 Ibid., 113–118. 17 Glatthaar, Forged in Battle, 223–224; Court Martial of James Allen, Joseph Grien (alias Green), Joseph Nathaniel, and Thomas Howard, 3rd U.S. Colored Infantry, File No. 00 1477, Court Martial Case Files, Record Group 153, Records of the Office of the Judge Advocate General (Army), National Archives and Records Administration, Washington, DC. 18 Berlin et al., Freedom, 774–775. 19 Ibid., 777. 20 Ibid., 780. 21 Ibid., 765; Frederick H, Dyer, A Compendium of the War of the Rebellion, vol. 3 (New York: Thomas Yoseloff, 1908), 1739.

102

9 “OUR BRAVE AND EVER TO BE REMEMBERED SOLDIERS” The Contested Legacy of Black Union Military Service in the Post-Civil War South Paul E. Coker On the first day of 1866, despite wet, dreary weather in Nashville, black Union soldiers and their regimental band led a parade of several hundred blacks through the city to celebrate the anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation. The soldiers marched ahead of a wagon crowded with black children and an auctioneer “beseeching the bystanders to bid high for a choice lot of young negroes”—a vivid reminder to black Southerners of how far they had come in so short a time under the protection of their soldiers. In the immediate aftermath of the Civil War, such powerful scenes were common across Tennessee. It seemed reasonable for an August 1865 convention of black Tennesseans in Nashville to hope that “our brave and ever to be remembered soldiers” might become “pillars” upon which black Southerners could “climb to greatness and renown.”1 The experience of black veterans in postwar Tennessee suggests that African Americans would not forget the legacy of their military service. An unsettled question remained for them, however: what would their legacy mean? In Tennessee, the struggle over meaning would produce violent backlash and uncertain bedfellows, but also striking opportunities for black veterans to fellowship with white Union veterans and promote their own understanding of the Civil War’s legacy.2 In some respects, black veterans in Tennessee seemed as well situated as any black Southerners to advance their own interpretation of the war’s meaning. Pulitzer Prize winner Steven Hahn contends that “by nineteenth-century standards, participation in the military and militia most clearly defied the representation of what it meant to be a slave or abject dependent, marginalized in or excluded from the arenas of civil and political life,” and a remarkable number of black Tennesseans had served. The Union Army gained control of the state’s largest slaveholding districts relatively early in the war, and the state eventually became the site of extensive black recruitment. Ultimately over twenty thousand blacks—a number representing nearly forty percent of Tennessee’s black male population of military age—enlisted in U.S. Colored Troops (USCT) infantry, artillery, and cavalry regiments.3 Black Tennesseans recognized and praised the role of their soldiers in transforming Southern society, but would white Tennesseans agree? Initially, the state’s white Radical Republicans calculated that keeping ex-Confederates disfranchised would be enough to maintain control of state politics without granting black voting rights, but continued pressure from black Tennesseans and a growing fear that the state would fall into “disloyal hands” eventually led to a change of heart. In February 1867, Tennessee became the first state in the South to give all black males the vote. 103

Paul E. Coker

Suffrage was an enormous achievement for black Tennesseans, but the fact that ex-Confederates remained disfranchised irked anti-Radicals. The Memphis Daily Avalanche raged: “We would sooner trust the uneducated [white] laborer on our streets with the ballot-box than the educated negro soldier or any other negro.” Shortly after black suffrage became law, another Memphis newspaper opined, “It would be better for the whole black breed to be swept away by pestilence. This may sound harsh but it is true. If one had the power and could not otherwise prevent the curse and inconceivable calamity in many of the southern States, it would be a solemn duty for him to annihilate the race.” This commentary was especially chilling in the shadow of the bloody race riot that had ravaged Memphis’s black community—and particularly targeted black veterans—less than a year earlier.4 The 1867 political campaigns in Tennessee would witness disturbing violence, but anti-Radicals also attempted to turn conventional wisdom regarding the legacy of the Civil War on its head. Anti-Radicals recognized the symbolic power of black soldiers, and one of their boldest moves was recruiting a black Union veteran named Joseph Williams to numerous speaking engagements throughout the spring and summer. Williams’s public statements revealed a simmering resentment toward Tennessee’s Radicals. In a front-page column in Nashville’s Republican Banner, he offered a jaded view of the black military experience that many white Southerners might have found appealing. “The white Radicals wish to make a cat’s paw of us by throwing us ‘to the front’ in a political point of view, as they did in the rebellion, because we are ignorant and do not understand their schemes,” he warned. Williams was particularly critical of the Radicals’ reluctance to support black officeholders, and personal snubs seem to have fueled his outrage. Conservatives claimed that the Radical governor had denied Williams permission to organize a State Guard company. Arguing that emancipation was “but a military strategy,” the Nashville Union and Dispatch reasoned that former slaves “owe as much gratitude to one of the parties to the war as to the other.”5 On the other side, the Radicals also recognized the utility of evoking the black military legacy to bolster political support. The Nashville Press and Times reprinted Jefferson Davis’s wartime proclamation threatening to execute black soldiers and their officers as insurrectionists and warned readers that the former Confederate President was “today the idol of the rebel leaders who are trying to gain the confidence of colored men to obtain their votes.” “Now there are in this city and State many thousands of negroes who enlisted in the Union army at the call of Abraham Lincoln,” the editor concluded, “how many discharged colored soldiers will join the Jeff Davis party? The ghost of the murdered Lincoln, who gave up his life for their sakes, would haunt the renegades forever.” At a Radical mass meeting in Nashville in April 1867, an African American speaker reminded an audience of four thousand blacks that black soldiers had already forced a remarkable shift in power and attitudes: “The government owes its success, through God, to the colored troops. We have too much of the idea that was stamped on our minds by old master, when we were young—that ‘niggers’ weren’t worth anything. We must shake off that idea, for see how much the ‘nigger’ is worth now. When we come to get the musket and the cannon-ball, we were surprised to shake ourselves and humph! we were somebody to be sure.”6 Ultimately, few black Tennesseans turned against the Radicals. Instead, in 1867 many more rallied to the Radicals and local Union Leagues. Black veterans in Franklin led a particularly active League. Procuring a fife and drum, they frequently paraded around the outskirts of town, but tensions grew over the summer of 1867. As one Franklin resident later explained, anti-Radicals “viewed the marching of the League with fife and drum as a sort of military organization and had fears lest it might be turned to disturbance or strife.” The situation boiled over into violence in July when black anti-Radical champion Joseph Williams made an unscheduled stop in Franklin and attempted to speak. Williams’s appearance produced an uproar, and heavily armed members of the two political factions traded taunts. A white anti-Radical told black veteran and prominent League 104

“Brave and Ever to Be Remembered Soldiers”

member Benjamin Graves, “Ben, you ought to take a little lesson under [Williams], you have been following the wrong flag.” The Union League members walked away from the speech in disgust. Crisis appeared averted, but a white man advanced from among the anti-Radical crowd and fired a pistol into the marching League members. Witnesses disagreed over precisely what happened next, but apparently Conservatives fired a volley into the League, and the League members turned and unleashed a volley of their own into the Conservatives. A bullet passed through Benjamin Graves’s coat sleeve, but he “called on the boys to rally to the flag” and claimed he “heard the Rebels cry out let us take those colors and tear them up.” Another Leaguer testified that Col. House had ordered his men “to go strait for the [U.S.] Flag.” When the smoke cleared, one white Conservative lay dead, while six others had wounds. The doctor treating the twenty-seven wounded black Leaguers noted that their injuries were all in their backs or the back of their limbs, demonstrating they had been attacked from behind. The U.S. Army’s official investigation observed pointedly that the man bearing the American flag was among the wounded.7 Black veterans seemed poised to play a significant part in the paramilitary politics of Reconstruction, but by the end of the 1860s, Union Leagues and Radical rule in the state abruptly collapsed under a storm of white violence, with black veterans frequently bearing the brunt of the onslaught. They, however, continued to assert their claim to the Civil War’s legacy. Perhaps the most visible statements were the parades that continued to course through the principal streets of Tennessee cities, winding their way through black and white neighborhoods alike. Historian W. Fitzhugh Brundage explains that the “harsh realities” of illiteracy and poverty facing blacks in the New South inhibited the development of literature and physical monuments during this time of increasingly conspicuous Confederate commemoration. Given their limited resources, public celebrations offered black Southerners the best opportunities to cultivate an “ennobling historical memory.” Black marchers’ martial displays of immaculate uniforms and fine-tuned drills, first evidenced during the Civil War, remained a source of racial pride in the ensuing decades. If anything, such displays appeared to gain popularity in the late 1880s, as newly formed black militia companies joined benevolent societies in quasi-military garb. Between 1885 and 1888, black militia companies formed across the state, including in Nashville, Chattanooga, Memphis, Murfreesboro, Columbia, Gallatin, Pulaski, and Clarksville. The extent of ex-soldiers’ participation in these militia companies is not entirely clear, but at least two Civil War veterans commanded companies. Samuel Shane, who had served as corporal in the 17th United States Colored Infantry (USCI), was the captain of Murfreesboro’s Sparks Rifles, and George Irvin of the 106th USCI commanded the Maury Rifles of Columbia.8 The heyday of these black militia units was brief: the state disbanded all of them by 1892. African American Civil War veterans, however, continued to occupy a place of distinction in public observances. For example, in June 1897, one hundred black Grand Army of the Republic members marched in the opening parade of “Negro Day” at the Tennessee Centennial Exposition in Nashville. The January 1 anniversary of emancipation remained among the most sacred occasions for black Southerners, and the significance of the black military experience was often a prominent theme. The 1892 observance in the chamber of the state House of Representatives in Nashville drew a “very large audience” that listened to an address on “The Colored Soldier” and a recitation of “The Black Regiment,” a poem written in 1863 by George Henry Boker to commemorate the charge of black Union soldiers at the battle of Port Hudson in Louisiana. Boker’s poem was a stirring tribute to the valor of black soldiers as well as an appeal to whites for recognition and justice for blacks. The final stanza of the poem reads: O, to the living few, Soldiers, be just and true! 105

Paul E. Coker

Hail them as comrades tried; Fight with them side by side; Never, in field or tent, Scorn the black regiment! This celebration of black heroism, though, carried with it a tinge of bitterness. After the traditional reading of the Emancipation Proclamation, the day’s keynote speaker, Reverend C.S. Smith, told the gathering that he was putting aside his prepared remarks and that he could not join the applause “because he did not see anything special in [the proclamation] to invoke applause.” Smith “doubted whether the people had stopped to analyze this proclamation.” Pointing out that Lincoln issued the proclamation and initiated black military recruitment only as “a war measure based upon military necessity,” he reminded his listeners that freedom did not come until “the government’s destiny hung in the scales of possible defeat and dissolution.” And yet even this vital contribution to Union victory could not cut through the prejudice of the many who “seem to think that only qualities of greatness reside in the white man. He is heaven and all outside of him is hell.”9 White Union veterans’ reflections on their time as officers with the USCT both complement and complicate Reverend Smith’s assertion. Edwin M. Main, who served as major of the 3rd U.S. Colored Cavalry and settled in Nashville after the war, revealed a degree of racial ambivalence in his history of the regiment. While he proudly noted that “the black troops, inspired by the dash and daring of their officers, seemed to rise equal to any emergency,” Main also observed that his regiment was “far above the average of those in colored regiments” because “none but the finest specimens of physical manhood were accepted.” Indeed, “the majority of men were mulattoes and in many of them the Caucasian blood predominated.” While much of Main’s account is condescending, black veterans likely would have agreed with some of his interpretations. In his 1893 address to the inaugural meeting of the “Third Colored Cavalry Organization” in Chicago (a reunion of the regiment’s white officers), Main unequivocally named slavery as the primary cause of the war and assured his comrades that “when time shall have obliterated sectional prejudices, future historians, rewriting the story of the great struggle for national existence, will carefully adjust the scales of justice. In one side will be justice, forbearance, and a due regard for the rights of mankind. In the other side will be injustice, arrogance, and oppression, intolerance and cruelty, chains and slavery, and misery unspeakable mingled with the groans of captives in chains, the agonized cry of Union soldiers sick and dying in foul prison-pens, at whose sufferings pitying angels weep and devils dance with glee. Which side, think you, will receive the approving sentence, ‘Well done, thou good and faithful servant?’” But, as with the accounts of many other officers, Main’s emphasis on the officers tended to minimize the capacities of black soldiers. “That the colored troops acquitted themselves with credit, has been fully demonstrated,” he insisted, but “it is needless to say that without efficient white officers the experiment with negro troops would have been a total failure.”10 Whatever Main’s own racial attitudes, he was also a member of one of the era’s most influential interracial organizations: the Grand Army of the Republic (GAR). The GAR experienced enormous growth nationally in the 1880s, from thirty thousand members in the late 1870s to over four hundred thousand in 1890, and black and white veterans in Tennessee contributed to the expansion. The organization wielded considerable political influence—particularly concerning pension legislation—and encouraged “proper” displays of patriotism everywhere from cemeteries to elementary schools. It also provided fraternal fellowship for veterans at local post meetings, state encampments, and national gatherings. Black veterans’ presence in a predominantly white organization was a remarkable development considering the general deterioration of American 106

“Brave and Ever to Be Remembered Soldiers”

race relations in the late nineteenth century. Amid a rising tide of white supremacy, black veterans’ involvement in Tennessee’s interracial GAR organization represents a striking, largely forgotten alternative in race relations and the evolving memory of the Civil War in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.11 White and black veterans alike experienced the GAR predominantly through their local posts, and at various times the Tennessee GAR included exclusively black posts in Nashville, Pulaski, Chattanooga, Athens, Greeneville, Rogersville, Clarksville, Knoxville, Memphis, Columbia, and Jackson. The vast majority of black veterans who joined the GAR in Tennessee were members of these all-black posts. The department did not explicitly order or urge segregation of black veterans, but in practice each location with at least twelve black GAR members formed separate black and white posts. Two of the first four posts organized in the Department of Tennessee, for example, were the all-white George H. Thomas Post No. 1 and the all-black Lincoln Post No. 4. While John Lawrence, a former chaplain with the 15th USCI, was a prominent leader in Post 1, numerous black veterans of the 15th were active in Post 4. The all-black Post 26 in Athens was established in December 1884, just one week after the all-white Post 25 formed in the same town. Chattanooga eventually boasted two white posts, but the city’s black veterans met in a separate post. 12 This pattern is unsurprising considering that fraternal orders, militia units, and virtually all other social organizations of the time were segregated, but available records do not indicate whether the formation of black posts resulted from exclusion by white veterans or efforts to claim autonomy by black veterans. All-black posts certainly gave black veterans more leadership opportunities than they would have had in white-majority posts. The all-black post also gave veterans a unique platform to advance their own interpretations of the Civil War’s meaning, as evidenced by the names they chose for their posts. Nashville’s Post No. 4 adopted the name Lincoln to celebrate the memory of the Great Emancipator, a hero revered by white and black veterans alike. In 1889, Memphis’s Post 86 suggested an even more extreme vision of the war’s meaning by naming their post for John Brown. When the post reorganized in 1895, leaders rechristened it Douglass, another powerful symbol of black freedom. Like their white counterparts, black veterans’ posts sometimes honored lesser-known heroes. Pulaski’s Col. Lathrop Post No. 10 was named after William H. Lathrop, the white commander of 111th USCI, who was killed in a September 1864 clash with Nathan Bedford Forrest’s cavalry in Alabama. According to the post’s descriptive records, many members of Post 10 had been captured during the battle. In other cases, black posts appropriated ostensibly white symbols to stake their own claim to local sacred spaces. In the same vein as Chattanooga’s white Lookout and Mission Ridge posts, the city’s black post took the name Chickamauga in honor of a nearby battlefield, even though no black troops had fought there.13 Because the GAR remained officially colorblind, black veterans’ involvement can go unnoticed in encampment journals unless a veteran’s race was itself an issue of discussion. However, the descriptive records for Tennessee’s GAR list most members’ regiment and rank, revealing that, while segregation was the norm, some black USCT veterans joined interracial posts in Tennessee. Twelve predominantly white posts, all in East Tennessee, had at least one black member. Post 25 in Athens claimed the largest contingent of black veterans of any integrated post. After the town’s all-black post disbanded, the originally all-white post absorbed some of the black veterans and eventually listed eleven black members, six percent of the post’s one hundred eighty-four members. Similarly, the nine black veterans of New Market’s Post 46 represented seven percent of the post’s one hundred twenty-two members. Five of the integrated posts appear to have claimed only one or two black veterans—although proportionally Dandridge’s W.T. Sherman Post 96 had the highest concentration of blacks, with two among the sixteen members.14 107

Paul E. Coker

Black involvement in Tennessee’s GAR remained on an unequal footing, but the organization offered ordinary black Southerners an opportunity for interracial fellowship unparalleled in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. In most respects, those who joined the GAR appear to have been rather ordinary individuals. The department’s descriptive records do not provide complete information on all members, but the available data for black posts in Memphis, Nashville, Pulaski, Knoxville, and Greeneville suggest that about three-quarters of each black post’s members had served as privates during the war. At Clarksville, Columbia, and Chattanooga, former privates appear to have comprised more than eighty percent of post membership. The first forty members of Memphis’s Douglass Post were all Southern born, and just over half identified their occupation as laborer or farmer. Similarly, of seventy-three members of Nashville’s black post who listed their birthplace, most were born in Tennessee and only one was born outside the South. At that post, a majority of those listing their occupation are identified simply as laborers (thirty-eight of sixty-seven). To be sure, the GAR also attracted black ministers, lawyers, teachers, and entrepreneurs—some, such as Preston Taylor of Nashville, being among the South’s black elite. But the social status of a large majority of black members in Tennessee was modest. Of the first twenty-four men to join Pulaski’s black post, for example, nineteen listed their occupation as farming and eighteen had mustered out of the service as privates. Chattanooga’s ten charter members included seven laborers and eight former privates. Black veterans in integrated posts followed a similar pattern—most were privates during the war and farmers or laborers afterward.15 Black Tennesseans’ participation in an integrated organization was remarkable, but given their limited proportion of the state organization’s membership, black veterans’ role remained somewhat tenuous. In 1885, the department counted 1,145 white and 88 black members, and the proportion did not shift dramatically over the following decades. Black participation at the annual department encampments varied from year to year. Although ten blacks representing four posts attended the 1892 state encampment in Nashville (out of seventy-eight total in attendance), only three black veterans attended the 1893 encampment in Harriman (in East Tennessee), and the following year only one black delegate attended the annual encampment in Greeneville. Geography seems to have been an obstacle to greater black involvement. East Tennessee was the locus of wartime Unionism and the center of white GAR activity, and it typically hosted the department’s annual encampments. But the most extensive recruitment of black soldiers had occurred in West and Middle Tennessee. Representatives from Memphis’s black post rarely made the cross-state trip to department encampments.16 The same issues that discouraged greater white involvement, including isolation from existing posts and financial considerations such as paying organizational dues, also hampered black participation in Tennessee’s GAR. Memorial Day observances were another issue that threatened to divide white and black veterans. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Stones River National Cemetery became a site of contention, as hundreds of Nashville blacks annually flocked to Murfreesboro on excursion trains and vastly outnumbered whites. The black revelers’ celebration deeply offended some whites, whose Victorian sensibility dictated that Memorial Day should be an occasion of solemn remembrance. In 1897, the Murfreesboro Independent Banner complained that fifteen hundred blacks had congregated just outside the cemetery to patronize half a dozen vendors hawking barbeque, cakes, and lemonade. The Banner even suggested that if Congress would allow the burial of Confederates in the cemetery and a shared decoration day, “we guarantee that there will be a proper observance of the day, and the services attended by those who have a proper regard for the occasion.”17 This racial tension threatened to spill over into the GAR, but black veterans continued to prove themselves capable of participating in departmental activities—and continued to receive support from many of their white comrades. The 1892 state encampment ended on something of a sour note when T.G. Balpishweiler of Nashville addressed “the colored brethren particularly” on Memorial 108

“Brave and Ever to Be Remembered Soldiers”

Day decorum. He complained that “our colored people make of this day a picnic; a colored jollification; a place of barter and trade.” At Murfreesboro, he “found everything conducted, not in the strict practice of the proprieties of the day, but [like] a religious picnic.” However, other white veterans quickly rushed to their black comrades’ defense. L.E. Dyer of Memphis declared that “it is out of order for the brother to lecture these men for something done at Murfreesboro.” The newly elected department commander H.C. Whittaker of New Market noted his agreement with Dyer, and the discussion closed without further comment. From the 1890s to the 1910s, some white observers continued to complain about the boisterous black Memorial Day celebrations in Murfreesboro, but black veterans remained a part of the formal GAR observances in the national cemetery. In 1900, for example, the department commander extended “especial thanks” to Nashville’s black post and one of the city’s white posts for conducting “a most excellent ceremony” at Stones River.18 In the late nineteenth century, white Union veterans in Tennessee sometimes appeared ambivalent toward blacks, but they also evinced hesitation regarding fellowship with ex-Confederates. If, as David Blight has argued, Civil War reconciliation and white supremacy proved related, lingering tension between white Tennesseans may at least partially explain how black veterans were able to maintain a place in the state GAR. In 1891, for example, department commander Charles Muller of Chattanooga told the state encampment, “We are told that being the victors we can afford to be magnanimous, but we cannot afford to haul down ‘Old Glory.’” Muller insisted that the GAR must teach a new generation “that it is very much more honorable to have fought for one’s country than against it.” In 1895, another department commander complained that “in some localities the old Federal soldier is a stench in the nostrils of his unrepentant neighbors” and described the GAR as “the focus of thirty-five years growth of malice and ever-increasing hatred.” Even while advising GAR men that “it is best that we all be friends,” he reiterated, “we cannot for the sake of mere friendship . . . afford to sacrifice the truth, or pervert the facts of history.” His account of the “facts of history” surely resonated with black veterans: “Our, then, enemies fought to preserve a wrong— for secession, to maintain a rebellion, to perpetuate human slavery, to destroy the Union. . . . No lapse of time, however long, can convert a wrong principle into a right one.”19 Some historians have argued that the 1898 Spanish-American War accelerated the trend toward sectional reconciliation on the basis of white supremacy, but in the years to come black veterans became more visible than ever in Tennessee’s GAR. In 1901, black veteran John Talley (from a predominantly white East Tennessee post) served as the state’s flag bearer in the grand parade at the national GAR encampment in Cleveland, Ohio. State commander M.M. Harris of Knoxville explained to his Tennessee comrades that before leaving for Cleveland, he “determined to devise some plan by which our delegation would receive more attention than has been ordinarily bestowed upon it in the grand parade.” The commander emblazoned a flag with the words “Loyal East Tennessee—’61-’65” and delegated “the honor of carrying this banner . . . to Comrade John Talley, a colored comrade,” who gallantly remarked when he received the flag, “I will stick to it as long as a piece of it remains.” Harris’s strategy produced the desired effect, for Talley and the other twenty marchers in Tennessee’s delegation “proved an attraction, eliciting cheers and such exclamations as: ‘Hurrah for Tennessee—yes, East Tennessee,” and garnered “more than the ordinary attention . . . in [the] grand review.”20 Talley’s appointment as flag bearer may have originated as a publicity stunt, but it established a new pattern of black involvement in Tennessee’s GAR. In 1902, the encampment journal began listing “Color Bearer” or “Chief Color Bearer” alongside other department offices in the annual journal of proceedings. The position remained the domain of black veterans, with Thomas White of Nashville’s black post and William Upshaw of Knoxville’s black post appointed in 1902 and 1903 respectively, Talley resuming the role from 1904 to 1908, and James Turner of Chattanooga’s black post serving in 1909 and 1910. Department records bear no evidence of white misgivings 109

Paul E. Coker

about the black color bearer appointments; in fact, during the same period white Tennesseans’ involvement at the national encampment expanded as well. The 1902 national encampment in Washington, D.C., included seventy-two marchers from Tennessee and “many more” who did not march, the state’s largest showing at a national encampment in ten years. The following year in San Francisco, Tennessee officials took pride in fielding the largest delegation of any Southern department. After the 1904 encampment in Boston, the department commander proclaimed that the state was again “fairly represented” as “thirty of our comrades marched behind the beautiful new National Flag carried by the Department Color Bearer, Comrade John Talley.”21 While black veterans assumed the flag-bearer duties in the early twentieth century, they remained absent from the organization’s council of administration. During the department’s first decade, black veterans had been a fixture on the council, but after 1893, they rarely occupied a seat. Department records offer no explicit rationale for the shift from council member to flag bearer; however, white Tennesseans’ pervasive skepticism regarding their black comrades’ literacy and competence suggests that many viewed blacks as better suited for carrying a flag than exercising other forms of leadership. It is tempting to dismiss the flag-bearer assignment as mere tokenism, but this may misconstrue the context of black veterans’ new role. Carrying a unit banner or national flag into battle had long been a mark of distinction for a soldier, and during Reconstruction the flag had been a lightning rod for anti-black violence. Historian Stuart McConnell observes that in the last decade of the nineteenth century the American flag “acquired semisacred trappings” in the GAR, and flag etiquette grew much more formal. As new legislation mandated the display of the flag at schools, Flag Day gained popularity, and “patriotic exercises” such as reciting the Pledge of Allegiance became common, the flag became the “chief icon” in the emerging “civil religion” of the United States. According black veterans such a prominent symbolic place in the department was a remarkable development in an era largely characterized by exclusion.22 The turn of the century remained a difficult time for black Southerners, who faced segregation, an epidemic of lynching, crushing poverty, and disfranchisement. But through community celebrations and at least some measure of interracial fellowship in the GAR, black veterans remained a potent symbol of an alternative interpretation of the Civil War. In 1867, a convention of East Tennessee blacks had praised the role of black soldiers in winning voting rights for the race through their valor “on numerous bloody battle fields, in devotion to the National flag . . . when the war cloud hung dark and low all over the State, and the strong hearts of brave men trembled for the safety of the Government.” As black veterans entered the twilight years of their lives, the war had long ended, but the struggle over memory continued.23

Notes 1 Nashville Daily Press and Times, July 6, August 12, 1865, January 2, 1866; Colored Tennessean, 7 October 1865; Mitch Kachun, Festivals of Freedom: Memory and Meaning in African American Emancipation Celebrations, 1808–1915 (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2003), 118–121. 2 Among the most influential studies of Civil War memory is David W. Blight, Race and Reunion: The Civil War in American Memory (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press, 2001). Blight argues that “a segregated society demanded a segregated historical memory” and that postwar reconciliation between whites across sectional divides eventually eclipsed black Southerners’ interpretations of the war’s meaning, particularly their memory of emancipation and calls for equality. For a recent reassessment of Civil War memory that challenges Blight’s thesis and emphasizes enduring sectional bitterness, see Caroline E. Janney, Remembering the Civil War: Reunion and the Limits of Reconciliation (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2013). 3 Stephen Hahn, A Nation Under Our Feet: Black Political Struggles in the Rural South from Slavery to the Great Migration (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press, 2003), 175; Bobby Lee Lovett, “The Negro in Tennessee, 1861–1866: A Socio-Military History of the Civil War Era” (Ph.D. diss., University of Arkansas, 1978).

110

“Brave and Ever to Be Remembered Soldiers” 4 William Gillespie McBride, “Blacks and the Race Issue in Tennessee Politics, 1865–1876” (Ph.D. diss., Vanderbilt University, Nashville, 1989), 41–42, 155, 172; Memphis Daily Avalanche, November 1, 1866, quoted in McBride, “Race Issue in Tennessee,” 155; Memphis Appeal, February 26, 1867; Ben H. Severance, Tennessee’s Radical Army: The State Guard and Its Role in Reconstruction, 1867–1869 (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 2005), 17, 24. On the 1866 Memphis Riot, see Stephen V. Ash, A Massacre in Memphis: The Race Riot that Shook the Nation One Year After the Civil War (New York: Hill and Wang, 2013). 5 Nashville Republican Banner, 6, 14, 17, April 18 and July 7, 1867; Nashville Union and Dispatch, 13, 29 March 1867; Nashville Daily Press and Times, April 11, 1867. McBride, “Race Issue in Tennessee,” 203. 6 Nashville Daily Press and Times, 1, 11, April 15, 1867. 7 Affidavit of Burrell Bostick, Franklin, July 8, 1867, affidavit of Samuel L. House, Franklin, July 9, 1867, affidavit of Benjamin Graves, Franklin, July 10, 1867, affidavit of John L. House, Franklin, July 10, 1867, affidavit of William Branam, Franklin, July 10, 1867, affidavit of D.B. Cliffe, Franklin, July 11, 1867, and report of Gen. J. P. Carlin, Nashville, July 15, 1867, Reports and Affidavits Relating to Outrages and Riots, Selected Records of the Tennessee Field Office of the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands, National Archives Microfilm Publications, T142. 8 W. Fitzhugh Brundage, The Southern Past: A Clash of Race and Memory (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press, 2005), 55–104; Brian D. Page, “ ‘Stand by the Flag’: Nationalism and African American Celebrations of the Fourth of July in Memphis, 1866–1887” in Trial and Triumph: Essays in Tennessee’s African American History, ed. Carroll Van West (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 2002), 191–193; Charles Johnson, Jr., “Black Soldiers in the National Guard, 1877–1949” (Ph.D. diss., Howard University, 1976), 133–137. 9 Richard A. Couto, “Race Relations and Tennessee Centennials” in Trial and Triumph: Essays in Tennessee’s African American History, ed. Carroll Van West (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 2002), 251; Nashville Banner, January 2, 1892; Clinton Scollard, ed., Ballads of American Bravery (New York: Silver, Burdett and Co., 1900), 101–104, 216–217. 10 Edwin M. Main, The Story of the Marches, Battles, and Incidents of the Third United States Colored Cavalry, a Fighting Regiment in the War of the Rebellion, 1861–5 (Louisville, KY: Globe Printing Company, 1908), 3–4, 11–12. 11 Mary R. Dearing, Veterans in Politics: The Story of the G.A.R. (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State Univ. Press, 1952); Barbara A. Gannon, The Won Cause: Black and White Comradeship in the Grand Army of the Republic (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2011). For an overview of race relations in the period, see Edward L. Ayers, The Promise of the New South: Life After Reconstruction (New York: Oxford University Press, 1992), 132–149; 152–159, 283–309, 432–437. 12 Grand Army of the Republic, Department of Tennessee, “Descriptive Records,” McClung Collection, East Tennessee History Center, Knoxville, Tenn. 13 Ibid. 14 Ibid. 15 Ibid. 16 Grand Army of the Republic, Department of Tennessee, Proceedings of the Ninth Encampment (1892); Grand Army of the Republic, Department of Tennessee, Proceedings of the Tenth Encampment (1893); Grand Army of the Republic, Department of Tennessee, Proceedings of the Eleventh Encampment (1894). 17 Miranda L. Fraley, “The Legacies of Freedom and Victory Besieged: Stones River National Cemetery, 1865–1920,” Tennessee Historical Quarterly 64 (2005): 151–155. 18 Ibid., 155–156; Grand Army of the Republic, Department of Tennessee, Proceedings of the Seventeenth Encampment (1900): 4. 19 Blight, Race and Reunion, passim; Grand Army of the Republic, Department of Tennessee, Proceedings of the Eighth Encampment (1891): 55; Grand Army of the Republic, Department of Tennessee, Proceedings of the Twelfth Encampment (1895): 43–44. 20 Grand Army of the Republic, Department of Tennessee, Proceedings of the Eighteenth Encampment (1901): 17–28; Grand Army of the Republic, Department of Tennessee, Proceedings of the Nineteenth Encampment (1902): 16–33. On the Spanish-American War, sectional reconciliation, and white supremacy see Ayers, Promise of the New South, 333; Blight, Race and Reunion, 351–352. 21 Grand Army of the Republic, Department of Tennessee, Proceedings of the Eighteenth Encampment to Twenty-seventh Encampment (1902–1910). 22 Stuart McConnell, Glorious Contentment: The Grand Army of the Republic, 1865–1900 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1992), 228–230. 23 Knoxville, Whig, 20, February 27, 1867.

111

This page intentionally left blank

PART III

From Empire to Ridding the World of Tyranny Race and War during the Early Twentieth Century

This page intentionally left blank

10 FROM BLACK REGULARS TO BUFFALO SOLDIERS The Emergence of a Legend1 Frank N. Schubert

In 1866, the Regular Army of the United States accepted black recruits for the first time. Small numbers of black men had served in the Revolution, the War of 1812, some Indian conflicts; many more had worn Union blue during the Civil War. Their race was denied, though, admission into the standing professional peacetime force that often expanded in times of war and contracted afterward. The change in Army manpower policy in 1866 was part of a major turning point that came after the defeat of the southern Confederacy and abolition of slavery, with the new status of black people as free people, citizens, and voters institutionalized by three postwar amendments to the Constitution. Black regulars joined an Army that for a generation would be mainly involved in settlement of the West and dispossession of the tribes that lived in the region. They became participants in the climactic Indian wars of the post-Civil War quarter century. Civil War demands for military manpower and the logic of a conflict rooted in the issue of slavery provided an opportunity for black men to serve.2 More than one hundred eighty thousand African Americans served in the war, composing nearly ten percent of two million Union soldiers. Black soldiers in this huge force were volunteers, recruited for specific terms of wartime service or for the duration of the war. Some served in the cavalry and artillery, but mostly in regiments designated “U.S. Colored Infantry.” Their service had profound, long-term implications. Frederick Douglass, the most famous black abolitionist and maybe the best known of all abolitionists, declared: Once let the black man get upon his person the brass letters “US,” let him get an eagle on his button and a musket on his shoulder and bullets in his pockets and there is no power on earth which can deny that he has earned the right to citizenship in the United States.3 After the war, the Army drew down gradually from about one million to just over twenty-five thousand and admitted black soldiers into the regular ranks. During Congressional debates on the postwar military, the competence of black soldiers, rigorously scrutinized by white officers, politicians, and reporters during the war, did not come into question. They had repeatedly shown that they could and would fight as well as white soldiers.4 The debates centered on such matters as the number of regiments, the branches of service in which blacks might serve, the source of their officers, and where they might be stationed. The absence of the defeated South from the debate, 115

Frank N. Schubert

the creditable wartime performance by black troops, and the logic of the new situation helped shape a consensus in favor of inclusion. As Senator Henry Lane of Indiana put it, “It is . . . either a burden or a privilege to serve in the Army, and . . . the colored people are equally entitled to bear the burden or equally entitled to participate in the privilege.”5 The Reorganization Act of July 28, 1866, designated six regiments for black enlisted men— the Ninth and Tenth Cavalry and the Thirty-eighth, Thirty-ninth, Fortieth, and Forty-first Infantry regiments.6 Three years later, the infantry regiments consolidated into the Twenty-fourth and Twenty-fifth. Their officers, including chaplains, were white. For fifty years, these four regiments were the only regular combat units comprised of black soldiers. The Indian campaigns in the Trans-Mississippi West represented the dominant operational concern of the Army. From 1866–1891, clashes with western Indians, mostly minor skirmishes and occasional pitched battles, numbered almost 1,300. As historian John M. Gates noted, “Much of the army’s work on the frontier was that of a frontier constabulary.” It also “served eviction notices on Indians and then forcibly removed them when required.” If they fled the reservations, the Army “found them and coerced them back,” or fought them until they again surrendered. “Most of the time,” Gates wrote, “it was routine though difficult police work.”7 Another historian, Dennis Showalter, summed up operations aimed at enforcing the confinement of Indians to reservations, as “a de facto constabulary model: patrol and pursuit.”8 The Army represented the vanguard of an expanding civilization, encouraging the spread of national institutions, protecting a growing population and its commerce, and moving the native population aside. Black soldiers played operational roles in these campaigns proportional to their numbers. They represented about twelve percent of the combat force and twenty percent of the cavalry. The one hundred sixty-eight skirmishes and battles in which they fought totaled just over thirteen percent of the Army’s engagements with various tribes. The most frequent and intense fighting took place during 1867–1881. Thereafter, the number of firefights declined, noticeably after 1880 and precipitously in the 1890s.9 The Ninth Cavalry fought in eighty-one combat engagements, and the Tenth in sixty-six. These black cavalry regiments were at the center of the campaign against Apaches led by Victorio and Nana in 1879–1881. Thirty-seven of the sixty-one black soldiers killed in fighting during 1867 to 1890 fell against the Apaches. The two black infantry regiments played minor roles against the Apaches, the only time that all four black regiments participated in a single campaign. Black troopers also took part in the campaign that led to the 1886 capture of Geronimo.10 The first-hand accounts by black regulars indicate they were proud of their service. Henry McCombs of the Tenth Cavalry said, “We made the west; defeated the hostile tribes of Indians; and made the country safe to live in.”11 Richard Miller of the Ninth, who served in 1886–1891, stated “We gladly did all we could to smooth the way for our great west,” and he relished memories of “the strenuous and also the happy life we led in our younger days in the army.”12 Throughout much of the 1890s, a domestic lull settled in that precipitated the international storm yet to come. Industrial conflicts and rumors of Indian disturbances proved more frequent than African American troopers.13 With the process of populating the West and binding it to more eastern parts of the country through transcontinental railroads largely complete, small numbers of black soldiers found themselves active participants in connecting the West through the construction of roads and the protection of National parks, such as Sequoia and Yosemite. The Frontier era, though, as historian Frederick Jackson Turner famously stated at the Chicago World’s Fair of 1894, was over. Indeed, as the twentieth century dawned, the focus of the Americans shifted from domestic gendarme operations to foreign conflict. Large overseas deployments, beginning with the 1898 war with Spain and then the long counter-insurgency in the Philippines, marked the new operational era for African American soldiers.14 116

From Black Regulars to Buffalo Soldiers

The Army acquiesced in generally accepted social disparities. It maintained segregated regiments, supplied white chaplains to black regiments until the mid-1880s, and had no black commissioned officers until the appointment of Henry O. Flipper in 1877, and then only two more in the next two decades. It also tolerated officers who were at times blatantly racist in their treatment of their men. Once organized, African American regiments went west and stayed there, mostly at remote, isolated stations. For twenty-five years, no black regiment served east of the Mississippi River. Only in the spring of 1891, after the Pine Ridge campaign, was a single black cavalry troop assigned in the East, when K Troop of the Ninth Cavalry went to Fort Myer, outside of Washington, D.C.15 Meanwhile, in the West, black soldiers often faced hostility from the people they protected—whites who populated communities in the new states and territories. The worst time and place was probably post-Civil War Texas, where the Wild West met the unreconstructed South.16 Within this segregated discriminatory framework, the mission and contribution of black soldiers mirrored those of white soldiers. Their pay and housing were identical, and they were subject to the same laws and regulations. This equality of work, conditions, and pay, as well as application of a single military justice system to black and white soldiers, made the Army a remarkably fair institution. All troops received surplus equipment left over from the Civil War, but, as William Dobak and Thomas Phillips’s The Black Regulars demonstrates, black units did not get inferior arms or worse equipment than white regiments.17 Also, their contributions to military success in the West did not go unrecognized. Fourteen regulars and four Seminole-Negro scouts assigned to a black regiment received the Medal of Honor, then the only decoration for valor.18 Black regulars from the frontier period are universally known as Buffalo Soldiers, but the origins and significance of that designation are unclear. There is general agreement and some evidence that Indians, either Comanche or Cheyenne, might have begun calling the troopers Buffalo Soldiers in the early 1870s. Some writers have seen identification of the soldiers with the buffalo as indicating Indian respect for their fighting ability, even signifying a special bond between native warriors and black soldiers. One modern writer asserted in a state tourism magazine that “the greatest respect they received came from their battlefield enemies, the Plains Indians, who dubbed them the ‘Buffalo Soldiers’ because their curly hair resembled the mane of an animal the tribes held in near sacred regard.”19 Over time, the association of the Indians’ presumed reverence for the buffalo and their alleged high regard for the brown-skinned enemy soldiers became a core element of an evolving mythology of the Buffalo Soldier. The earliest verifiable example of the usage was in an 1873 article by an unnamed correspondent in the magazine The Nation.20 Through a reprinting in the Army and Navy Journal, the article reached a wide military audience. The report, probably from an Army officer at Fort Sill, Indian Territory, attributed the usage to Comanches, who drew the comparison “because like the buffalo, they are woolly . . . .” This observer, favorably impressed by the soldiers, thought the Indians respected them. The writer considered “these ‘buffalo soldiers’ . . . active, intelligent, and resolute men; . . . perfectly willing to fight the Indians, whenever they may be called upon to do so . . . .” He opined that the soldiers seemed “. . . rather superior to the average of white men recruited in time of peace,” because, as their officers accurately noted, “the best colored young men can be recruited in time of peace, while, under the same condition, only indifferent or inferior whites can in general be induced to enlist.” This generated an avalanche of dissent from white soldiers that the editor noted but did not publish.21 From that point into the 1890s, other, usually derogatory, nicknames for African American troops appeared regularly enough, and a few examples of the usage Buffalo Soldiers are known.22 The term appeared occasionally in the Army and Navy Journal, including in an article by Frederic Remington. Remington’s “A Scout with the Buffalo Soldiers,” published in Century, in April 117

Frank N. Schubert

1889, contained the phrase “buffalo soldiers” in the text and in the title. Remington did not explain the phrase, plainly expecting his readers to recognize it.23 It was also used in newspapers, sometimes derisively, sometimes approvingly. By 1895, the usage was becoming commonplace.24 Self-referential use by frontier-era black soldiers, in pension affidavits, newspapers, the National Indian Wars Veterans’ monthly Winners of the West, or elsewhere, is virtually unknown. The only instance seems to be the 1929 reminiscence by Reuben Waller, who soldiered in the Tenth Cavalry for ten years. He was almost ninety years old when he wrote of his experience in the 1868 fight at Beecher’s Island in the Arickaree Fork of the Republican River. Waller’s recollections appeared eight years after Major Edward L.N. Glass had used the term in his 1921 history of the regiment, so it is hard to say whether Waller based his use of the phrase on Glass or on his personal recollection.25 Generally, “ ‘Buffalo soldiers’ seems,” historian William Dobak concluded, “to have been a term that appealed to outsiders but insiders did not use.”26 By the time that Glass and Waller wrote, the image of a buffalo adorned the Tenth Cavalry’s regimental crest. Some historical writers rely upon this usage as confirmation of the nickname. Louise Barnett, in her study of an 1879 incest scandal among officers with black troops at Fort Stockton, Texas, wrote that the nickname Buffalo Soldiers meant so much to the men of the Tenth that they “promptly enshrined the image of the buffalo on the regimental crest” (see Figure 10.1). However, the Army adopted the crest in 1911, almost forty years after the first known use of the term.27 Lack of examples of contemporary use by the soldiers themselves suggests that their reaction to the name, now often said to reflect the respect of their adversaries, was extremely modest or that the soldiers did not perceive what so many modern observers read into the phrase. The absence of evidence concerning the original meaning has not inhibited development of the Buffalo Soldier mythology. Myths and misconceptions start with the importance attached to the origin and significance of their Buffalo-Soldiers nickname and extend to their supposed

Figure 10.1 The 10th Cavalry’s Regimental Crest, Designed and Adopted in 1911. Source: Photograph by Irene Schubert.

118

From Black Regulars to Buffalo Soldiers

empathy with their Indian foes. They also include the belief that their combat record, clearly proportionate to their numbers in the active force, surpassed that of white units, and the view that their equipment, uniforms, and mounts were worse than those issued to other units. And, despite the flood of literature and memorabilia concerning their lives and service, the notion persists that theirs is an untold story or hidden history, slighted and kept from public knowledge.28 White mainstream awareness of black frontier military service dates mainly from the 1960s, the civil rights revolution, and the Civil War centennial. Literature and films depicting it began to appear at that time, most famously with John Ford’s film “Sergeant Rutledge” in 1960 and William Leckie’s book The Buffalo Soldiers in 1967. The Buffalo Soldiers opened the eyes and fired the imaginations of historians and lay readers alike. It followed the two cavalry regiments, Ninth and Tenth, over twenty-five years of campaigning and as a result, popularized the term: Buffalo Soldiers. Following the lead of Major Glass in 1921 and H.B. Wharfield in 1964,29 Leckie reasoned that the buffalo was so important to the plains Indians’ cultures that they would not have made the comparison if it had not been respectful. In a cautious footnote, he hedged his suppositions: The origin of the term ‘buffalo soldier’ is uncertain, although the common explanation is that the Indian saw a similarity between the hair of the Negro soldier and that of the buffalo. The buffalo was a sacred animal to the Indian, and it is unlikely that he would so name an enemy if respect were lacking. It is a fair guess that the Negro trooper understood this and thus his willingness to accept the title.30 After Leckie offered this careful explanation, many came to regard the nickname “Buffalo Soldiers” as honorific, showing that the Indians considered the black troopers to be exceptional, perhaps the best soldiers that the army had. In forty years, Leckie’s cautious guesses evolved into hyperbolic claims that reached all the way to the Walmart website. The giant retailer’s Black History Month study guide in 2005 declared that “Their name–Buffalo Soldiers–was bestowed on them by the Cheyenne people. It refers to their fierce fighting abilities along with the woolly texture of their hair.”31 There remains no proof, though, that the name meant anything beyond identification between the soldiers’ brown skin and nappy hair on one side and the animals’ brown wooly coats on the other, and no evidence has turned up that the soldiers used the name to refer to themselves. Other historians have adopted Leckie’s view, often less cautiously, and have written, without qualification or reservation, that the term signified respect and that the soldiers so comprehended it.32 Leckie himself abandoned his prudence in an interview for a 1992 video production called “The Buffalo Soldiers.” By then he had become certain that “the Cheyennes saw a resemblance between the hair of that black trooper and the buffalo. It was meant as a compliment. That black trooper understood it. He not only liked it. He was proud of it.” Leckie stated that he had interviewed several old Kiowa and Comanche people at Anadarko, Oklahoma, and “They confirmed what I just told you. They said, ‘well, they were fighters.’”33 When he and his historian wife Shirley Leckie revised The Buffalo Soldiers for a 2003 edition, however, they observed that the origin and meaning of the term remained unclear.34 But, it was not historians alone that fixed in the general consciousness the image of the Buffalo Soldier as a participant in the frontier drama. Rather, it was General Colin Powell, in the summer of 1992, with his widely publicized appearance at the dedication of sculptor Eddie Dixon’s statue of a mounted black cavalryman at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. The stature and presence of General Powell, then Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, helped make the Buffalo Soldier into a cultural icon, adorning tee shirts, refrigerator magnets, phone cards, jigsaw puzzles, and coffee mugs, as well as starring in western and romance novels, children’s books, plays, movies, and even a doo-wop song. 119

Frank N. Schubert

General Powell’s speech, squarely in the tradition of Frederick Douglass, linked military service to a claim on citizenship: “From the beginning of our nation, African Americans answered the call to arms in defense of America whenever that call came.” Moreover, from the establishment of the black regular regiments after the Civil War, “African Americans would henceforth always be in uniform, challenging the conscience of the nation, posing the question, ‘How could they be allowed to defend the cause of freedom, to defend the nation, if they, themselves, were to be denied the benefits of being American?’” He acknowledged that he, the highest ranking officer in the armed forces, owed a debt to the black soldiers who had preceded him, and Powell challenged young people not to forget the soldiers’ sacrifice and service.35 Meanwhile assertions of Indian respect for the soldiers spread. The Discovery Channel, promoting a program called “Rediscovering America: Buffalo Soldiers” for classroom use in 1997, reflected this tendency with its “focus questions”: Q: Why did the Indians affix the name of the buffalo to these African American soldiers? A: The Indians affixed the name buffalo to these African Americans because their short curly hair and black faces resembles [sic] the buffalo, and their tenacious spirit was also characteristic of the animal.36 Around the same time, a National Park Service brochure entitled “Buffalo Soldiers,” about the Presidio of San Francisco, acknowledged that “the soldiers seldom used the name amongst themselves,” but insisted nevertheless that “they did accept the term as complimentary.”37 The Army went beyond the NPS. A twenty-page children’s book called Happy Birthday U.S. Army!!, prepared in 2008 for the two hundred thirty-third anniversary of the 1775 establishment of the Army, praised the whole multicultural Army family, African Americans, Latinos, Japanese Americans, Indian code talkers, even Muslim women soldiers. Grandpa, according to the juvenile narrator of the tale, told “a story about the Buffalo Soldiers. It’s really cool! The Native American Indians thought black soldiers were as strong and powerful as the mighty buffalo, and gave them the nickname ‘Buffalo Soldiers” as a sign of respect.”38 In 2014, the NPS still clung to this narrative: “it is said that the Indians referred to the black cavalry troopers as “Buffalo Soldiers” because their hair resembled that of the hair on the buffalo and because of their fierce nature of fighting, which emulated the buffalo as well.39 This aspect of the Buffalo Soldier myth reached its fullest expression in a made-for-TV film that merged contradictory claims that the soldiers were the Army’s best fighters, yet bonded with the enemy. Danny Glover’s 1997 production “Buffalo Soldiers” portrayed the black troopers as so proficient that they surprised and captured Victorio and his Apache band, something U.S. troops never managed to do.40 Then, after conversations over coffee, in which soldiers and warriors empathized with the oppression each endured at the hands of whites, the troopers let the Apaches go. This effort to merge two narratives of victimhood created a multicultural fantasy that posited an affinity between non-white groups based on a shared experience of white discrimination and racism. It also insulted Indians and soldiers alike. A patrol of American soldiers, white or black, never encircled the Apaches in such a manner. The cavalrymen, had they been adept and lucky enough to have captured Victorio, would never have let him get away. The claim that the name, Buffalo Soldiers, represents a respectful connection between the soldiers and their foes has precluded consideration of other possibilities. One alternative never discussed is that the comparison of the soldiers to the buffalo might have been negative. Larry McMurtry wrote that cows “. . . are hard to poeticize. They tend to seem ugly, stupid, and slow, which they are . . . .” The North American bison, Walter Prescott Webb observed, was “. . . a 120

From Black Regulars to Buffalo Soldiers

stupid animal, the easiest victim to the hunter, whether the redman with bow and arrow or the white man with his long-range buffalo gun . . . .”41 Some contemporary newspaper references did suggest a dim Indian view of the black regulars. An Arizona paper wrote in 1885 that “the Indians call the Negroes ‘buffalo soldiers’ and have no fear whatever of them.” Another in Omaha claimed that “buffalo soldiers . . . is a term of contempt applied by the Indians to our colored troops . . . .”42 Another unexamined possibility for Indian use of the term concerns sheer numbers. Plains Indians had seen black men before the Tenth Cavalry moved to Indian Territory in 1869 from Forts Riley and Leavenworth. There had been occasional trappers or teamsters with wagon trains, maybe a homesteading family or two. When the Tenth Cavalry occupied Camp Sill, however, they came by the hundreds, far more than Comanche or Cheyenne people had ever encountered, enough brown-skinned men perhaps to remind the native people of a herd of Buffalo, especially when they rode together.43 Descendants of Indian combatants have challenged the notion that the term Buffalo Soldiers was a sign of Indian respect or endearment. The publicity accompanying the issuing of a commemorative stamp of the Buffalo Soldiers in 1994 provoked modern Native Americans, who resented suggestions of a special bond between the soldiers and their warrior ancestors. Vernon Bellecourt of the American Indian Movement denied that the name reflected any “endearment or respect.” As far as he was concerned, Plains Indians applied the term to “these marauding murderous cavalry units” because of “their dark skin and texture of their hair.” Activist Cornel Pewewardy added an article headlined “Buffalo Soldiers were federal hired guns.”44 The Indians resisted efforts to connect victimhood narratives through bonds of mutual respect. Instead, they tried to keep them separate and mutually exclusive. In Minneapolis, formation of a chapter of the Ninth and Tenth (Horse) Cavalry Association provoked a similar reaction. Lee Ann Tall Bear, a writer and descendent of a Lakota chief, asked for more candor. The soldiers “real purpose,” she said, “was to kill Indians. If that’s what they’re proud of, then that’s what they need to say.” Others objected to the Ninth Cavalry’s insignia, showing a mounted warrior in a war bonnet, another case, according to Phil St. John, of using Indians as mascots.45 Additionally, student protest over the stamp at San Francisco State University threatened to set fire to mail boxes, and apparently succeeded in ending its sale at the campus post office.46 Black soldiers as well as whites used dismissive epithets—“hostile tribes,” “naked savages,” and “redskins”—and racist caricatures when referring to Indians. Reminiscent of the white use of “blackface” to denigrate and stereotype African Americans, a black private named Robinson went to a masquerade ball at Fort Bayard, New Mexico, in 1894, dressed as “an idiotic Indian squaw,” according to a published report by a fellow soldier.47 It should be no surprise to read of a black soldier calling a Plains Indian in 1890 “a voodoo nigger,”48 echoing a white soldier who called the Plains Indians in 1873 “red niggers.” 49 This trooper reflected the values of the society in which he struggled for a place, perhaps hoping to link himself with the dominant group.50 As historian William Gwaltney, a descendent of a Buffalo Soldier, said, “Buffalo Soldiers fought for recognition as citizens in a racist country and . . . American Indian people fought to hold on to their traditions, their land, and their lives.”51 These were not compatible, harmonious goals on which to base interracial harmony or build coalitions. In 2009–2011, fresh perspectives on the encounter between black soldiers and Indians reinforced Gwaltney’s views. Museum exhibits, at the National Museum of the American Indian in Washington and at the Eiteljorg Museum in Indianapolis, started from James Leiker’s key observation, that historically race relations in the United States were subsumed within a black-white binary model.52 Beyond Leiker’s main point, Murray Wickett, in his study of the Five Civilized 121

Frank N. Schubert

Tribes and their relationships with their black slaves and later with freedmen, showed that even tribes with similar histories could relate to black people in dramatically different ways.53 Things were complicated, and the two exhibits reflected this complexity. A display panel contributed by the National Museum of the American Indian to the Eiteljorg exhibit explained that “Like their white counterparts and under white command, the African American Tenth Cavalry regiment participated in the violent westward expansion of the U.S. at the expense of Plains Native peoples. But Buffalo Soldiers saw their service as protecting American citizens and a way to validate their newly won citizenship and gain equality.” The Eiteljorg exhibit ended with provocative panels showing various tribal approaches to sharing their gambling profits and other modern sources of revenue with black people who claimed tribal membership, showing that even today the assumption that people of color share interests and understanding does not explain the relationships between Native groups and African Americans. These displays may hold out some promise for an understanding that adheres more closely to what we actually know about the past than to visions based on current values. Yet there remains a third possibility for the path that perceptions might take, and that is suggested by the proliferation of statues of black soldiers at western forts. The Fort Leavenworth memorial at which Powell spoke in 1992 was one of at least nine of these memorials, the first being Rose Murray’s 1977 larger-than-life portrayal at Fort Huachuca, Arizona. These statues, along with efforts to raise money for more such monuments, indicate the widespread interest in black soldiers and the growing political power of the African American community. They also contrast starkly to the almost total absence of statuary commemorating the service of white soldiers in the West. So they raise intriguing possibilities. After the museum exhibits disappear, and the books and films fade into obscurity, these monumental sculptures will remain. Will their enduring presence, not balanced by similar tributes to the white soldiers who served in the West, suggest that black soldiers fought and won the Indian wars? Only time will tell. Whichever direction future understanding of the history of African American participation in the Indian wars might take, the explanation for the mythology that currently surrounds the subject lies in the present, not in the past. Parts of it have taken hold despite the absence of supporting data, and other aspects have emerged in the face of contrary evidence. Some of the mythology is a multicultural fantasy, an attempt to see the past through a present-day prism (see Table 10.1). The myth raises questions. Is it patronizing to put these soldiers at the center of the frontier drama and give them more credit than they deserve? And why is an oft-told story persistently labeled Table 10.1 Buffalo Soldier Statuary in the West Location

Sculptor

Year Installed

Fort Huachuca, AZ Fort Leavenworth, KS Fort Bayard, NM Fort Selden, NM Fort Bliss, TX Junction City, KS Cheyenne, WY Lawton, OK Albuquerque, NM

Rose Murray Eddie Dixon Gregory Whipple Reynaldo “Sonny” Rivera Jimmy Bemont Richard Bergen Chris Navarro Gary Gardner Ben Hazard

1977 1992 1992 1992 1999 2000 2007 2010 2011

Source: Author created content.

122

From Black Regulars to Buffalo Soldiers

“untold”? In any case, the emergence and development in the 20th century of a buffalo-soldier myth shows that their story is no longer just American history but American mythology. There is irony in the journey from historical complexity to mythological simplicity. The modern gloss, idealizing the past and erasing complexities in favor of a picture compatible with current views, is easier to absorb, supports a search for self-esteem, and sooths the modern conscience. Yet, the myth obscures real triumphs and successes, achievements that should be the source of pride and the basis for understanding. The facts should speak for themselves. As General Powell noted, these soldiers came out of slavery to stake a claim on citizenship based on military service and confront the conscience of the nation. For decades, as segregation remained both law and custom, the soldiers persisted in their challenge to the collective conscience, participated in the mainstream American process of westward expansion, provided examples and positive mainstream role models, and served in all of the nation’s 20th century wars. As historian Rayford Logan said, “Negroes had little, at the turn of the [twentieth] century, to help sustain our faith in ourselves except the pride that we took in the Ninth and Tenth Cavalry, the Twenty-fourth and Twenty-fifth Infantry. . . . They were our Ralph Bunche, Marian Anderson, Joe Louis and Jackie Robinson.”54

Notes 1 William Dobak, Gordon Olson, Thomas Phillips, and Irene Schubert read and commented on this essay. I thank them all for their suggestions. 2 The most recent and most comprehensive work on black Civil War service is William A. Dobak, Freedom by the Sword: The U.S. Colored Troops, 1862–1867 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Army Center of Military History, 2011). Also see Dudley Taylor Cornish’s classic The Sable Arm: Black Troops in the Union Army, 1861–1865 (Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas, 1956) and Joseph T. Glatthaar, Forged in Battle: The Civil War Alliance of Black Soldiers and White Officers (New York: Free Press, 1991). 3 Frederick Douglass, “Should the Negro Enlist in the Union Army?,” National Hall, Philadelphia, July 6, 1863, published in Douglass’ Monthly, August 1863. 4 Frank N. Schubert, “The Test: U.S. Colored Troops at New Market Heights,” unpublished paper, author’s files. 5 Quoted in William Dobak, “Buffalo Soldiers: Sorting Fact from Fiction,” Wild West 23 (April 2003): 42. 6 For the Congressional debates, see 39th Congress, 1st session, Congressional Globe, vol. 36, Washington: Government Printing Office, 1866; the law is at 14 U.S. Stat. 332. Also see Ira Berlin, Joseph P. Reidy, and Leslie S. Rowland, eds., Freedom, A Documentary History of Emancipation 1861–1867, Series II, The Black Military Experience (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982), 736–737; William Dobak and Thomas D. Phillips, The Black Regulars 1866–1898 (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2001), xiii– xiv; Thomas D. Phillips, “The Black Regulars: Negro Soldiers in the United States Army, 1866–1891” (Ph.D. dissertation, University of Wisconsin, 1970), Chapter 1. 7 John M. Gates, “Indians and Insurrectos” in The U.S. Army in Irregular Warfare, ed. Gates, 4, accessed June 2015, www3.wooster.edu/history/jgates/book-ch2.html. copy in author’s files 8 Dennis Showalter, “The U.S. Cavalry: Soldiers of a Nation, Policemen of an Empire,” Army History (Fall 2011): 18. 9 This summary is based on three compilations: Adjutant General’s Office, U.S. Army, Chronological List of Actions & c., With Indians, from January 1, 1866, to January 1891; Francis B. Heitman, Historical Register and Dictionary of the United States Army, from Its organization, September 29, 1789, to March 2, 1903, vol. 2 (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1903), 426–449; George W. Webb, Chronological List of Engagements Between the Regular Army of the United States and Various Tribes of Hostile Indians Which Occurred During the Years 1790 to 1898, Inclusive (St. Joseph, MO: Wing Printing and Publishing Company, 1939). Combat engagements noted in these three sources are collated and listed in Irene Schubert and Frank N. Schubert, On the Trail of the Buffalo Soldier II: New and Revised Biographies of African Americans in the U.S. Army, 1866–1917 (Lanham, MD: The Scarecrow Press, 2004), 356–359. 10 On the Apache campaigns, see William H. Leckie, The Buffalo Soldiers: A Narrative of the Negro Cavalry in the West (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1967), 176–177, 183–185, 239–245; Monroe Lee

123

Frank N. Schubert

11 12 13

14

15 16

17 18

19 20

21 22

23 24

25 26 27

28

Billington, New Mexico’s Buffalo Soldiers 1866–1900 (Niwot, CO: University Press of Colorado, 1991), 87–108; Dan L. Thrapp, The Conquest of Apacheria (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1967). Winners of the West 4 (December 1927): 3. Winners of the West 7 (February 1930): 3. On the 1890s as a transitional decade in military operations, see Frank Schubert, Buffalo Soldiers, Braves and Brass: The Story of Fort Robinson, Nebraska, (Columbia, MD: White Mane Publishing Company, 1993), 32–34. Schubert, Buffalo Soldiers, Braves and the Brass, 33; Clayton D. Laurie and Ronald H. Cole, The Role of Federal Military Forces in Domestic Disorders (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Army Center of Military History, 1997), 122–123, 126–127, 157–159, 169–173. Frank Schubert, Black Valor: Buffalo Soldiers and the Medal of Honor, 1870–1898 (Wilmington, DE: Scholarly Resources, Inc., 1997), 131. On borderland racism, see James N. Leiker, Racial Borders (College Station: Texas A & M University Press, 2002), 13–14, 34–35, also Leckie, The Buffalo Soldiers, 235–236; Schubert, Voices of the Buffalo Soldier: Reports, Records, and Recollections of Military Service in the West (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2003), 114–122. Dobak and Phillips, Black Regulars, 106–113; Dobak, “Buffalo Soldiers: Sorting Fact from Fiction.” On the medal recipients, including the scouts, see Schubert, Black Valor. On the Seminole-Negro community in general, see Kevin Mulroy, Freedom on the Border: The Seminole Maroons in Florida, the Indian Territory, Coahuila, and Texas (Lubbock, TX: Texas Tech University Press, 1993); Kenneth W. Porter, The Black Seminoles: History of a Freedom Seeking People, eds. Alcione M. Amos and Thomas P. Senter (Gainesville, FL: University Press of Florida, 1996). Leo W. Banks, Jr., “The Buffalo Soldiers,” Arizona Highways 71 (January 1995): 34. Frances Roe, the wife of Lieutenant Fayette Washington “Faye” Roe of the white 3rd Infantry, who served alongside Tenth Cavalry elements in Indian Territory during 1872–1873, used the phrase in a letter from Camp Supply dated May 1872 but published in 1909. Her reference to “buffalo soldiers,” suggesting only an identification based on physical appearance, may be the earliest known reference to black troopers as “buffalo soldiers,” assuming she wrote the letter in 1872 and not later when she assembled her 1909 book. Frances M.A. Roe, Army Letters from an Officer’s Wife (New York: D. Appleton and Co., 1909), 55, 65, 77–78, 103–104. The Nation 17, No. 245 (October 30, 1873): 286–287, reprinted in Army and Navy Journal 11 (November 8, 1873): 197; Army and Navy Journal 11 (December 20, 1873): 292. One popular name for the soldiers among whites was “brunettes.” See, for example, Robert G. Carter, On the Border with Mackenzie or Winning West Texas from the Comanches (New York: Antiquarian Press, Ltd., 1961), 86, 87; De B. Randolph Keim, Sheridan’s Troopers on the Borders: A Winter Campaign on the Plains (Williamstown, MA: Corner House Publishers, 1973), 46. For usage of “Buffalo Soldiers,” see Sidney (Nebraska) Telegraph, September 21, 1878, and Army and Navy Journal 18 (April 3, 1880): 704; “The Apache Campaign,” Army and Navy Journal 18 (April 3, 1880): 704–705, initially published in the Philadelphia Times, and partly reprinted in Marcos Kinevan, Frontier Cavalryman: Lieutenant John Bigelow with the Buffalo Soldiers in Texas (El Paso: Texas Western Press, 1998), 222; also Army and Navy Journal 20 (June 24, 1882): 1080; Park (Utah) Record, September 27, 1888; Deming (New Mexico) Headlight, May 24, 1889, cited in Larry D. Ball, Ambush at Bloody Run: The Wham Paymaster Robbery of 1889 (Tucson: Arizona Historical Society, 2000), 40. Perhaps the most intriguing name for the soldiers, used by an anonymous correspondent in 1898 was “black war cloud.” Harper’s Weekly, May 14, 1898, 475, 478. “A Scout with the Buffalo Soldiers,” in Peggy and Harold Samuels, eds., The Collected Writings of Frederic Remington (Garden City: Doubleday and Company, 1979), 30. Army and Navy Journal 31 (August 25, 1894), 906; “Personal Items,” Army and Navy Journal 32 (June 8, 1895), 672; Thomas Phillips, “Sobriquet: A Chronological Commentary on the Name ‘Buffalo Soldier’,” The Journal of America’s Military Past 35 (Spring/Summer 2010): 5. Waller’s narrative is in The Beecher Island Annual: Ninety-third Anniversary of the Battle of Beecher island, September 17, 18, 1868 (Beecher Island, CO: The Beecher island Battle Memorial Association, 1960), 86–89. Dobak, “Buffalo Soldiers: Sorting Fact from Fiction,” 50. Louise Barnett, Ungentlemanly Acts: The Army’s Notorious Incest Trial (New York: Hill and Wang, 2000), 59; General Orders No. 1, Headquarters, Tenth Cavalry, February 11, 1911, Miscellaneous Records, Tenth Cavalry, Record Group 393, National Archives and Records Service. Frank Schubert, “The 25th Infantry at Brownsville, Texas: Buffalo Soldiers, the ‘Brownsville Six,’ and the Medal of Honor,” Journal of Military History 75 (October 2011): 1217–1224.

124

From Black Regulars to Buffalo Soldiers 29 Glass and Wharfield are quoted in John M. Carroll, ed., The Black Military Experience in the American West (New York: Liveright, 1971), Glass from his 1921 regimental history and Wharfield from Tenth Cavalry and Border Fights (El Cajon, CA, 1964). 30 Leckie, The Buffalo Soldiers, 26. Also see Schubert, Voices of the Buffalo Soldier, 47–49. 31 Regina E. Spellers, “Study Guide: Buffalo Soldiers: the Invisible Men of Honor,” originally accessed May 2009. www.bsmcjaxflorida.com/Buffalo_Soldier_SG.pdf (site discontinued); now available at: www. bsmcbhamal.org/files/Buffalo_Soldier_SG.pdf 32 See, for example, Billington, New Mexico’s Buffalo Soldiers, xi; Garna L. Christian, Black Soldiers in Jim Crow Texas 1899–1917 (College Station: Texas A & M University Press, 1995), xiii; Barnett, Ungentlemanly Acts, 59. 33 The Buffalo Soldiers, Bill Armstrong Productions, 1992. 34 William H. Leckie and Shirley A. Leckie, The Buffalo Soldiers: A Narrative of the Black Cavalry in the West (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2003), 26–27. 35 Ninth and Tenth (Horse) Cavalry Association, The Buffalo Soldier Monument Dedication (Topeka, Kansas: Mainline Printing, 1992); Anthony Williams, “The Buffalo Soldier Monument,” Army 47 (February 1997): 61–63; Colin L. Powell with Joseph E. Persico, My American Journey (New York: Random House, 1995), 554–557. Powell’s speech is quoted from Charlotte Raub, “Buffalo Soldiers—a ‘first’ in American Military History,” INSCOM Journal 22 (January–March 1999): 29. 36 “Rediscovering America: Buffalo Soldiers,” accessed and printed November 7, 1997. http://school. discovery.com/spring97/rediscoveringamerica-buffalosoldiers/resources.html 37 The undated brochure, “The Buffalo Soldiers,” appeared in the late 1990s. The current version, with the same title, was last updated in February 2007, accessed and printed January 6, 2008. www.nps.gov/ prsf/historyculture/buffalo-soldiers.htm 38 Army Child & Youth Services, Happy Birthday U.S. Army!!, 2008, 9, copy in author’s files. For the full text, see www.myarmyonesource.com/cmsresources/Army%20OneSource/Media/images/Child %20Youth%20and%20School%20Services/Army%20Birthday/2008_Army_Birthday_Book.pdf (site discontinued). 39 “Charles Young Historic Markers Unveiling & Recognition Ceremony,” accessed and downloaded May 23, 2014, www.nps.gov/chyo/parknews/charles-young-historic-markers-unveiling-and-recognitionceremony.htm 40 Buffalo Soldiers, a TNT original film for television, 1997. 41 Larry McMurtry, “Death of the Cowboy,” New York Review of Books, November 4, 1999, 17; Walter Prescott Webb, The Great Plains, (Boston: Ginn and Company, 1931), 44. 42 Weekly Arizona Miner, (Prescott, AZ), June 13, 1885; Omaha Daily Bee, September 15, 1885. These examples were provided by Thomas Phillips, in a letter dated November 10, 2011. Also see Phillips, “Sobriquet,” 5. 43 This possibility of sheer numbers being the basis for the comparison was called to my attention by William A. Dobak in an e-mail message of November 12, 2007. 44 Vernon Bellecourt, “The glorification of Buffalo Soldiers raises racial divisions between blacks, Indians,” Indian Country Today (May 4, 1994); Cornel Pewewardy, “Buffalo Soldiers were federal hired guns.” Indian Country Today (June 23–30, 1997). 45 Jodi Rave, “ ‘Buffalo Soldiers’,” Minneapolis Star Tribune, August 20, 1996. 46 Stamp Collector, June 4 and June 25, 1994; E-mail message, NATIVE-L , subject: USPS $.50 [sic] stamps,” June 8, 1995, copy in author’s files; Minneapolis Star Tribune, August 20, 1996; Los Angeles Times, February 6, 1997. Also see Schubert, “Buffalo Soldiers: The Stamp, the History, the Myth, and the Controversy,” American Philatelist 120 (June 2006): 544–549. 47 Schubert, Black Valor, 128–129. On the social significance of blackface, see David W. Blight, Race and Reunion: the Civil War in American Memory (Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2001), 222–231, 286. 48 Quoted from Edward A. Johnson, History of Negro Soldiers in the Spanish-American War (Raleigh, NC: Capital Printing Co., 1899), 34. 49 Quoted from Robert M. Utley, Custer: Cavalier in Buckskin (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2001), 92. 50 Joel Kovel, White Racism: A Psychohistory (London: Free Association Books, 1988), 216. 51 William W. Gwaltney, “The Making of Buffalo Soldiers West,” Colorado Heritage (Spring 1996): 47. 52 “Indivisible: African-Native American Lives in the Americas”, an exhibit at National Museum of the American Indian, November 10, 2009 through May 2010, Gabrielle Tayac (Piscataway) curator;

125

Frank N. Schubert “RedBlack: Related Through History,” an exhibit at the Eiteljorg Museum of American Indians and Western Art, February 12–August 7, 2011, James H. Nottage curator; Leiker, Racial Borders, 5–6, 15, 22, 87–89. 53 The five carved out different roles for their former slaves after emancipation, ranging from full political participation to a denial of any political role, including the vote. Murray R. Wickett, Contested Territory: Whites, Native Americans and African Americans in Oklahoma, 1865–1907 (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2000), 172–174. 54 Rayford W. Logan, The Betrayal of the Negro, from Rutherford B. Hayes to Woodrow Wilson (New York: Collier Books, 1965), 335.

126

11 “ARE NOT MY MEN THE SAME?” Race, Ethnic Identity, and Pawnee Indian Military Service during the Indian Wars Mark van de Logt

Introduction Between 1864 and 1877, several hundred Pawnee Indians served as scouts for the United States Army. They participated in a series of campaigns: the Powder River Expedition (1865), guard duty along the Union Pacific Railroad (1867–1868), the Republican River Expedition (1869), the Red River War (1874), and the Dull Knife Fight (1876), as well as numerous smaller and lesser-known actions. The term “scout” does not fully cover the contributions of these men, who, apart from scouting, engaged enemy tribes in battle, carried dispatches, escorted railroad surveying crews, guided scientific expeditions, patrolled important lines of communication, and performed countless other tasks. Issues of racism, ethnocentrism, and paternalism played an important part in the experience of these scouts during their service in the frontier army. Military service did not transform them into “white soldiers” as some proponents had hoped, but rather reinforced traditional Pawnee practices and customs. Furthermore, the contributions of these scouts increased appreciation of them in certain corners of the military establishment.

“It Renders Them Tractable and Obedient”: Commanding Officers’ Attitudes toward the Pawnee Scouts Racist attitudes toward American Indians pervaded the United States military establishment in various degrees. West Point considered conflicts with Native American tribes an unworthy form of warfare. It continued to focus on symmetrical warfare instead of the asymmetrical warfare that characterized conflicts with American Indians. The deployment of Indian scouts never emerged as a component of formal Army doctrine.1 The use of scouts was a matter of expediency rather than policy. Not until the Military Act of 1866 was a more systematic use of Indian scouts possible. Often, however, the matter largely remained contingent upon the discretion of departmental commanders when it came to the use of these forces. From these men’s opinions, it is possible to distinguish several attitudes toward the Pawnee scouts in the upper echelons of the military establishment in the 1860s and 70s.2 “Assimilationists” believed that military service facilitated American Indians’ integration into Anglo-American society. Major General Samuel Ryan Curtis was an early advocate of assimilation 127

Mark van de Logt

through military service. In 1864, Curtis was the first to systematically recruit the Pawnee scouts. Partly prompted by economic necessity, he enlisted scouts because they were “cheap” and rapidly discharged after their services were no longer required. Curtis, however, also contended that military service would enable Indians to advance socially and economically. Indians—especially the nomadic tribes—should give up their wandering ways in favor of farming or “industrial pursuits” and “adopt white America’s ideas about property and economy.” For this reason, Curtis believed that military service would have a salutary effect on the Indians. His experiment also laid the foundation for the 1866 Military Act which authorized the War Department to enlist up to one thousand Indians annually for scout service.3 The successful nature of the Curtis experiment inspired others, such as Colonel Christopher Columbus Augur, commander of the Department of the Platte, and Lieutenant General William Tecumseh Sherman, to adopt his recommendations. In 1867, Augur argued that scout service “opens to those people a useful career, [and] renders them tractable and obedient, educating them more effectually than can be done in any other way.”4 Sherman echoed Augur’s argument: “If we can convert the wild Indians into a species of organized cavalry . . . it accomplishes a double purpose, in taking them out of temptation of stealing and murdering, and [it] will accustom them to regular habits and discipline, from which they will not likely depart when discharged.”5 Brigadier General George Crook, who commanded the Pawnee scouts in 1876, also propagated the assimilationist argument when he declared that military service was “the entering wedge by which the tribal organization is broken up, making way for civilizing and Christianizing influences.” According to Crook, scout service allowed Indians to be “on an equal footing” with white men. “It demonstrates to his [the Indian’s] simple mind in the most positive manner that we have no prejudice against him on account of his race, and that while he behaves himself he will be treated the same as a white man.”6 As the general’s comments show, paternalistic and racist thought was rife throughout the ideology of the assimilationist cause.7 In reality, Augur, Sherman, and Crook were not truly assimilationists at all. They were more accurately “pragmatists” who never lost sight of the tactical advantages that Indian scouts offered. Augur and Sherman primarily used the argument of assimilation to appease critics in the Interior Department who favored a humanistic Indian policy. Crook clarified this position in an interview with the Army and Navy Journal. In the interview, the general stated his conviction that the presence of Indian scouts had a demoralizing effect on enemy tribes. “Some people say it is wrong to use the people of a tribe against itself,” Crook said, “but pshaw! if I can kill one rattlesnake by making another bite him, I shall do it.”8 “Pragmatic” officers cared little for assimilation, but saw in Indian scouts such as the Pawnees a means for dealing with resisting Indian tribes. None of these commanders harbored ideas of, let alone ever issued instructions to, “civilize” the scouts. White Army officers also did not outlaw native cultural expressions. On the contrary, they reinforced Pawnee cultural practices by allowing the scouts to earn war honors, take scalps, perform war celebrations, and escape the assimilation pressures from agents and missionaries on the reservation.9 The attitudes of a third group of generals proved far more blatantly racist than those of the assimilationists and pragmatists. Brigadier General Patrick Edward Connor, who commanded the scouts in 1865, viewed the Pawnee scouts as troublesome enlisted men who lacked discipline. Connor occasionally sought to “correct” their behavior by punishing them. His disciplinary actions, such as his order to destroy the spoils his scouts had collected after the Tongue River battle with the Arapahos (August 29, 1865), only caused unnecessary tensions.10 Similarly, Brigadier General Robert B. Mitchell, who commanded the scouts in 1864–1865, did not believe that the scouts provided additional value to the Army. On several occasions, Mitchell threatened to disband the Pawnee battalion. Mitchell expected the scouts to behave like white soldiers, which was 128

“Are Not My Men the Same?”

what military service was supposed to accomplish according to the assimilationists. Such attempts at “civilizing” the Pawnees were usually counterproductive. Racist officers did not see the logic in employing Indians as auxiliaries. To them, the struggle against Indians was a struggle of civilization against “barbarism.” If one had to employ Indians to achieve victory, would that not mean that the premise of Anglo-American superiority was flawed? In this sense, these officers were more consistent in their reasoning than the “assimilationists.” Major Eugene Asa Carr, Fifth Cavalry, was one commander who did not, at first, recognize the value of Indian auxiliaries. He had not commanded Indians before and was skeptical. Still, he was willing to learn from his experiences. Early in his 1869 campaign against the Cheyenne Dog Soldiers, Carr complained that the Pawnees were “rather lazy and shiftless,” that they hindered the regular troops, that they were careless with horses and equipment, and that their “knowledge of the country [was] vague and general.” In an early report he wrote: “I would however like to exchange all but (30) thirty of them for good cavalry soldiers.”11 Gradually, however, his opinion shifted. A few weeks into the expedition, he reported that “the Pawnees are improving somewhat in discipline and general usefulness; and [I] hope to get good service out of them.”12 After the fight at Summit Springs (1869), at which the Dog Soldiers were defeated, Carr had nothing but praise for his scouts: “The Pawnees under Major Frank North,” he wrote in his official report, “were of the greatest service to us in the campaign. This is the first time since coming west that we have been supplied with Indian scouts—and the result has shown their value.”13 Carr’s example shows that, if given an opportunity to demonstrate their skills, American Indian scouts and auxiliaries performed remarkably well.14

“The Indian Is Not a Soldier, and He Cannot Be Made One”: The Attitudes of Soldiers and Lower-Ranking Officers toward the Pawnee Scouts Racist attitudes were even more widespread among ordinary soldiers than among their commanding officers. Many soldiers called scouts “treacherous” and “unreliable.” Several soldiers accused scouts of lacking bravery and avoiding battle. Others objected to the Indian practice of scalping and mutilating enemy corpses after battle. Most believed that scouts lacked discipline, while others claimed that scouts were “unsanitary” and had strange and “savage” habits. Before the Pawnee scouts had a chance to prove their value in a campaign, some officers complained that the Pawnees lacked in discipline. In 1865, Captain Lee P. Gillette of the First Nebraska Volunteer Cavalry and commander of Fort Kearny insisted that the Pawnees drilled in European fashion as called for by the manual of arms with the hope of transforming them into regular soldiers. The Pawnees did not take well to the drills, and Gillette eventually gave up on the attempt. Similar efforts to make the scouts perform guard duties also failed. These failures only reinforced Gillette’s prejudices against Indian auxiliaries.15 Others complained that the Pawnees lacked the physical and mental preparation for warfare. They certainly did not impress Captain Eugene F. Ware, who saw the Pawnee scouts in action in 1864. He ascertained that Indians lacked “the right kind of endurance, pertinacity, mind, and courage.”16 “The Indian as an individual was inferior, and as a race was inferior, to the Iowa farm boy,” Ware summarized, and added: “In physical strength, discipline and heroism the Indian does not compare and is not in the same class with the white man with whom the Indian came into contact.” He could only conclude, therefore, that “The Indian is not a soldier, and he cannot be made one.”17 Subsequent events, however, demonstrated that Ware was quite wrong. Pawnee cultural practices appalled some of their white colleagues in the military. After attending a Pawnee scalp dance in 1865, Captain Henry E. Palmer called it “the most savage scene I had 129

Mark van de Logt

ever witnessed.” The music, which maintained a steady and consistent beat well into the night, also bewildered him and other white regulars attempting to get some sleep.18 Some soldiers felt that commanders treated the Indian scouts better than the regular troops. Lieutenant Colonel Richard Irving Dodge, who served in George Crook’s Powder River campaign (1876), complained that Crook reserved the best camping grounds for his Indian scouts. “The Cavalry and Infantry are nobodies,” Dodge wrote bitterly, “He scarcely treats [Col. Ranald Slidell] McKenzie [sic] and I decently, but he will spend hours chatting pleasantly with an Indian or a dirty scout.”19 Some officers distrusted the scouts. Second Lieutenant Henry H. Bellas, Fourth Cavalry, believed that all Indians were treacherous and unreliable. Bellas, who met the Pawnee scouts in 1876, wrote that “any Indian will betray even those of his own tribe, including all his wife’s relations, provided the reward offered be sufficiently tempting.20 Some soldiers accused the scouts of intentionally avoiding battle. They also objected to the Plains Indian tradition of scalping and mutilating the corpses of their enemies. Private Robert Morris Peck, who observed five Pawnee scouts in a battle with the Cheyennes in 1857, said they were “cowardly,” and “only followed in our wake, scalping the dead Cheyennes, and gathering up their abandoned ponies.”21 Peck was also greatly disgusted when the scouts tried to buy a Cheyenne prisoner from Colonel Edwin V. Sumner “in order to have a grand scalp-dance over him, and put him to death by torture.”22 Private James Welch, who saw the Pawnees in action at Summit Springs (1869), voiced a similar complaint: “The Pawnees did not fight well,” Welch complained later, “They skulked and killed the women and children.”23 In almost all of the cases above, racist prejudices were reflective of soldiers’ fears of Indian warfare and their frustrations with the rigors and hardships of army life. In the eyes of these soldiers, Indian scouts enjoyed privileges not afforded to regular troops. Scouts did not have to drill, salute, and did not follow the same rules of discipline. Soldiers resented marching in the same clothes for weeks and felt forced to “live like Indians.” Their fear of Indian surprise attacks emerged in their continuing apprehension over serving with Indian scouts: could scouts be trusted if they were willing to fight people of their “own race”? Finally, soldiers felt that the risks of battle remained unevenly divided between soldier and scout. Scouts often operated on the “fringes” of battle (usually securing the enemy’s horse herd). Though it seemed the lesser of the two, Indian scouts ran greater risks than soldiers because the nature of their contribution placed them quite often in the crossfire between hostile Indians and nervous soldiers who had trouble separating friend from foe. In fact, the Pawnee scouts often out-performed the regular soldiers. They received several commendations for their contributions, and one of them, “Mad Bear,” even earned the Congressional Medal of Honor for his actions during the Summit Springs campaign.24 Not all officers and soldiers harbored the same level of resentment against the Pawnees. The scouts in fact fascinated several officers. Two of these, Captain John G. Bourke and Lieutenant William P. Clark, were so fascinated that they developed a “scientific” interest in American Indian life. Bourke served with the Pawnee Scouts during General George Crook’s 1876 campaign. Although Bourke respected the Pawnee scouts, his observations appear colored by racial prejudice and racist assumptions. In his mind all Indians were “savages” and with uncivilized customs. Thus, Pawnee music was not musical at all, their eating habits were disconcerting, and in religious matters, the Pawnees were “very superstitious.” Needless to say, Bourke’s generalizations would not pass modern-day standards of scientific inquiry.25 Lieutenant William Clark also met the Pawnee scouts in Crook’s campaign. The scouts’ ability to communicate with members of other tribes through sign language interested him. Clark began to study the Indian sign language and eventually published a book which still stands as the authoritative work on the subject.26 130

“Are Not My Men the Same?”

There were some assimilationists among the soldiers and officers. The most famous of these was Captain Richard Henry Pratt. Pratt had commanded a handful of Pawnee scouts during the “Red River War” (1874–1875) where their performance impressed him. Years later, Pratt founded Carlisle Indian School with the intention to assimilate Indians by educating them. Some ordinary soldiers also developed a greater appreciation for Indian scouts. Private William F. Hynes, who observed Pawnee scouts guarding Union Pacific Railroad crews in 1867, was one of these. Hynes discovered a degree of discipline behind the apparent “violent disorder” of Indian battle. He also admired the bravery with which one Pawnee scout fought a duel, on horseback, with a Sioux enemy. Unlike Captain Henry Palmer and others, Hynes and his fellow soldiers enjoyed participating in a Pawnee scalp dance.27 As the examples of Bourke, Clark, Pratt, and Hynes indicate, appreciation of Indian scouts increased when these men displayed their qualities in battle.

Pawnee Attitudes toward “Race” and Warfare Plains Indian tribes had a strong sense of “self ” and “other.” Tribes often referred to themselves as “the people.” The Cheyennes, for example, called themselves Tsistsistas or “the Human Beings.” Other tribes used similar designations. Although the Pawnees did not refer to themselves as “the people,” they nevertheless had a distinct identity. The origin of the name “Pawnee” is obscure and probably came from their enemies. The Skiri (“Wolf ”) Pawnees formed a distinct group within the tribe. The most closely related linguistically and culturally were the three South Band Pawnees: the Chaui (meaning of the word unknown), Pitahawirata (“Man Going Downstream”), and Kitkehahki (“Little Earthlodge Village”). Most other tribes called them the “Wolf People.”28 Sedentary tribes such as the Pawnees, Arikaras, and Hidatsas, distinguished themselves from the nomadic tribes such as the Sioux and Cheyennes. Goodbird, a Hidatsa, explained that his people “looked upon the Sioux as wild men, because they lived by hunting and dwelt in tents. Our own life we thought civilized.”29 In fact, the nomadic tribes often preyed on the sedentary tribes. It is not an exaggeration to state that the Sioux, particularly, were waging genocidal warfare against the Pawnees. The pressure from nomadic tribes prompted many sedentary tribes to send young men to enlist as scouts for the United States Army. The Pawnees referred to their Sioux enemies as cárarat (“enemy”) although they also used the term “cut-throats.”30 Different methods existed for overcoming ethnic differences. One of these was the calumet (pipe) ceremony, which was essentially an adoption ceremony in which kinship ties were established. This elaborate ceremony involved the exchange of presents that solidified the relationship. Marriage was another form of extending kinship ties beyond their own tribe. Though adult male captives were commonly, but not always, tortured and killed, the same did not occur for females and children who often assimilated into the tribe.31 Pawnee attitudes toward warfare were also distinct. Although a Pawnee man could rise to respectability through hunting, healing, and politics, war honors were an important way to climb the social ladder. Warfare became even more significant after the arrival of the nomadic tribes in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. As a deeply religious people, they explained warfare in religious and spiritual terms. War expeditions to capture horses, captives, or scalps were ceremonial undertakings. As with any ceremony, such expeditions involved sacrifice, either in the form of an enemy killed, or of the Pawnee warrior himself. Even after joining the North’s scouts during the Civil War years, Pawnee warriors observed the religious and ceremonial customs of war. They continued to perform ceremonies, called upon the sacred powers, carried religious paraphernalia, made tobacco and other sacrifices, took enemy scalps, changed their names after battles, conducted victory celebrations, and, in the process, earned war honors and the praise of the Pawnee people.32 131

Mark van de Logt

The Pawnee word for “scout,” raaripákusu’, translates to “constant fighters.” It was a term of honor. Scout service allowed Pawnee men not only to earn money fighting their enemies with the guns provided by the United States Army, but also allowed them to practice their traditional customs. Thus, scout service reinforced rather than undermined traditional Pawnee cultural patterns. The money earned by the scouts, in effect took the place of other spoils of war. Even after receiving their release from the American military, their discharge papers became tokens of honor.

Pawnee Views of White Soldiers, Officers, and Western Warfare The Army appointed civilians to lead the Pawnee battalion. This decision was based on the fact that there were no regular officers available who spoke Pawnee. The scouts’ first commanding officer, Joseph McFadden, was selected because he spoke Pawnee and had some military experience after having served under William S. Harney at Ash Hollow in 1855. Although McFadden had married into the tribe and adopted their dress and way of life, he was not an effective commander. Because of his “commoner” status and his association with his wife’s band, the scouts from the other Pawnee bands would not accept his authority. Frank North, who eventually succeeded McFadden as commanding officer of the scouts’ battalion, added that the Pawnees looked down upon white men who had married into the tribe and adopted their way of life.33 Not closely identified with any particular band, and at the age of twenty-four and without any military experience, Frank North had to earn the respect of his scouts. Initially, the Pawnees accepted his authority only conditionally. As soon as he overstepped his authority, the scouts would correct him. When North attempted to punish a few scouts too harshly in 1867, their comrades simply left his command and returned to their reservation. The U.S. Army, recognizing the importance of continuing Pawnee support, wisely refrained from punishing the mutineers. North’s junior officers (all whites) wielded even less authority. They served mainly as intermediaries between the scouts and the regular army. Understanding his limits as the leader of a Pawnee war party, Frank North would not discourage traditional Pawnee war-related practices, partly because the scouts would not have accepted his interference and perhaps also because he recognized that confident scouts made better fighters. Instead of drilling his men like white soldiers, North instead adopted many of the customs and attitudes of his scouts. For example, when his men bestowed honorary names upon him (first “White Wolf ” and later “Pawnee Chief ”), he reciprocated the honor by presenting gifts to them.34 North displayed all the characteristics of a traditional Pawnee war leader. By distributing captured horses and other spoils after a successful campaign, he ensured the loyalty of his men for future campaigns. Finally, because the Pawnees were so successful under his leadership, they believed that North was under the special protection of the sacred powers. Sadly, the Pawnees fared poorly after their removal to present-day Oklahoma. Hence, when North arrived in 1876 to revive the battalion, he was received like a hero. The Pawnee scouts did not think highly of the Army’s tactics. “Neither the Wild Tribes, nor the Government Indian Scouts ever adopted any of the white soldiers’ tactics,” wrote Luther North, “They thought their own [tactics] much better.” Pawnee scout Rush Roberts remarked that while marksmanship was superior among regular troops, “the group formations of the army made [them] a bigger target.” Roberts believed that the Army’s main advantage lay in technology: they had better weapons than the Indians.35 Generally, the scouts felt that they received fair treatment. They received rations and clothing similar to other cavalrymen. Apart from weapons they received a horse, saddle, saddle blankets, boots, a blue shirt, a cap, an ammunition container, a waist belt that fitted rifle bullets, a leather 132

“Are Not My Men the Same?”

case for revolver bullets, a black blouse, a haversack, a canteen, a knapsack, and a blanket roll. They received the same pay as regular soldiers ($13 a month), which they usually sent home. The food was generally sufficient. When in camp, scouts received baked bread, meat, dried fruits, vegetables, rice, beans, corn meal, oat meal, and salt pork. On the campaign trail, their food allotment included flour, salt pork, hard tack, rice, prunes, sometimes baked bread, fresh meat, and beans.36 The Pawnees also forged friendships with white soldiers. They joined white soldiers playing baseball and gambling (cards, dice, and horse races), but they usually refrained from drinking liquor, even though this was a favorite pastime among regular soldiers. Frank White (Li-Herisoo-la-shar) and Ralph Weeks became friends with Lieutenant Colonel Richard Irving Dodge. White honored Dodge with a piece of an enemy scalp, a gift which symbolized long life to the recipient.37 When asked for his opinion of the soldiers, Pawnee scout Rush Roberts remarked that “In those days nearly all large groups of people was a mixture of good and bad.” Roberts noted, however, that he “got along fine with maj. Frank North and his brother capt. Luther North.” Unfortunately, the scouts’ opinions about commanding generals was not recorded, although they were puzzled by Connor’s order (see above) to destroy the spoils they had taken in battle. Rush Roberts declared that they “were well treated” by their immediate superior officers and that the scouts had good leadership “in surprising the Oglala Band of Sioux in Nebraska [and also during] the surprise early morning attack of the Cheyenne in Wyoming [1876].” Only one comment of a Pawnee scout about a general has survived. Upon seeing General Philip Sheridan in September 1876 at Sidney, Nebraska, Rush Roberts dryly remarked that “He had a big mustache.”

Recognition for Their Services Military service earned the Pawnee scouts high praise from the Army high command. The success of the Pawnee scouts prompted several other military leaders to employ Indian scouts more regularly. Colonel Philippe Régis de Trobriand, an admirer of the Pawnee Battalion, experimented with the formation of a unit of Arikara Scouts on the northern Plains.38 Elsewhere, too, Indian scouts became a common sight among army units. One Pawnee scout, Sergeant Co-rux-te-chod-ish (“Mad Bear”), was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor for his actions during Carr’s 1869 campaign against the Cheyennes.39 Upon Carr’s recommendation, the U.S. Congress awarded the medal on August 24, 1869. The official citation read, “Ran out from command in pursuit of a dismounted Indian; was shot down and badly wounded by a bullet from his own command.”40 Controversially, Sergeant Charles L. Thomas received the Medal of Honor for locating an embattled American command in 1865. He would not have done so without the aid he received from the two Pawnees who guided him there.41 The scouts also received recognition from several government bodies. Following their success at Summit Springs, the state legislatures of Colorado and Nebraska adopted formal resolutions thanking the scouts for their services in the campaign.42 The Nebraska State Legislature praised the scouts for “the manner in which they have assisted in driving hostile Indians from our frontier settlements.”43 In all of the major campaigns in which the Pawnee scouts participated, they earned the appreciation of their commanders. Major Carr was not the only one to comment and see to it that they received credit for their actions. General George Crook wrote a commendation for Frank North and his scouts in 1877: “I think it only just and appropriate to thank you for your excellent behaviour during the time of your stay in the military service under my command,” Crook wrote. He continued to say that “the soldierlike conduct and discipline of the Pawnee scouts is the most eloquent testimony that could be adduced to prove your fitness for the position you have held as their Commanding Officer.”44 133

Mark van de Logt

Frank North, who had earned the respect of his men in battle, continued to work tirelessly for them after the bugle sounded. He frequently clashed with Army bureaucrats on behalf of his men. For example, after the battalion’s disbanding in April 1877, North penned an angry letter to Lieutenant General Philip Sheridan demanding that, apart from subsistence, his men also deserved the payment of forty cents per day for every pony for travel expenses. He demanded that they received the same treatment as other enlisted men. “Are not my men the same as other regularly enlisted and honorably discharged soldiers—entitled to ‘travel pay’ and rations or commutation of rations, from here to their home?” North questioned.45 General Sheridan, ordinarily not known for being sympathetic toward American Indians, agreed and promptly authorized North’s request. Unfortunately, civilian government functionaries took a different view of the scouts. Quaker agents in charge of the Pawnee Agency objected to military service because it “retarded” their attempts at “civilizing” these Indians. Superintendent Samuel M. Janney complained that returning scouts were “less tractable” than the other Pawnees. Their association “with bad white men” exposed the scouts to drinking and gambling, according to Janney. Finally, Janney believed that scout service only fueled Sioux aggression against them.46 Although most of Janney’s objections were patently mistaken (there is no record of scouts indulging in alcohol, and Sioux aggression against the Pawnees existed long before the Pawnees entered scout service), the War Department followed the recommendations of the Office of Indian Affairs. The decision not to activate the battalion in 1871, prompted the response from Union Pacific Railroad (UPRR) officials. UPRR General Superintendent O. G. Hammond replied that the scouts were “so efficient” in guarding the railroad against hostile Indians “that the military authorities think them indispensable [sic].” Hammond added that the scouts “will go further in the same time than white soldiers, will go where white soldiers cannot, and have so much experience that they can trace the most intricate movements of the enemy and give notice of hostile parties, always in advance of any information otherwise obtained.” Hammond also argued that “the cost of a campaign of these scouts is but a trifle.”47 Worse was the treatment of the scouts by government officials after the Indian Wars. When the Jerome Commission arrived at Pawnee in 1892 to discuss the allotment of the reservation and the sale of surplus lands, many of the scouts resisted. They reminded the commissioners that they had fought in the service of the American Army and deserved better treatment. Their pleas, unfortunately, fell upon deaf ears.48 Equally frustrating were the scouts’ attempts to secure military pensions. The application and verification process of the government’s Pension Office caused many delays. Sometimes decades passed before a veteran received his pension. In many cases, the veteran died before the approval of his claim.49 In light of the above facts, one might argue that the Army treated the Pawnee scouts more fairly than the civilian branches of the federal government did.

Conclusion Military service did “assimilate” the Pawnees, but not in the way that assimilationists had envisioned: it allowed the Pawnees to showcase their martial skills and practice traditional cultural customs, while, at the same time, providing them with a sense of equality. Military service was one of the few arenas (apart from Wild West Shows) in which the Pawnees maintained their cultural identity. In a sense, the scouts’ service reformed the Army. Although it occurred gradually, the success of the Pawnee scouts caused many soldiers and officers to reconsider their view of Indians. The scouts also introduced their colleagues to Indian cultural practices. Although this did not mean that soldiers and officers ceased to harbor racist assumptions, it nevertheless meant 134

“Are Not My Men the Same?”

that they became more respectful of Indians as soldiers. It is no coincidence that, after the Indian Wars were over, many officers, such as Sheridan and others, actually became advocates for the fair treatment of American Indians.50 Sadly, once the need for them ended, the American government quickly turned its back on the Pawnees, outlawing traditional cultural expressions such as war dances. Pawnees who had once fought side-by-side with white soldiers, returned to the relegated role of second-class citizens and “dependents” to a paternalistic federal government.51

Notes 1 Robert F. Utley, Frontiersmen in Blue: The United States Army and the Indian, 1846–1865 (New York: Macmillan, 1967), 32–33. 2 On July 28, 1866, President Andrew Johnson signed into law “An Act to increase and fix the Military Peace Establishment of the United States.” Section six of the act authorized the President “to enlist and employ in the territories and Indian country a force of Indians, not to exceed one thousand, to act as scouts, who shall receive the pay and allowances of cavalry soldiers, and be discharged whenever the necessity for their further employment is abated, or at the discretion of the department commander.” United States Statutes at Large, vol. VIII, “Public Acts of the Thirty-ninth Congress, Session I” Chapter 299, “An Act to increase and fix the Military Peace Establishment of the United States,” 332. 3 Terry Beckenbaugh, “ ‘Peaceful and Friendly Relations’: Samuel R. Curtis and the Indian Commission Treaties, 1865–66,” paper delivered at the Western History Association annual meeting, Denver, Colorado, October 2012. 4 Report by Bvt. Major General Christopher C. Augur, Headquarters Department of the Platte, Omaha, Nebraska, September 30, 1867, Annual Report of the Secretary of War, House Exec. Doc. 1, 40th Congress, 2nd Session, Serial Set 1324 (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1867), 59–60. See also Robert Bruce, The Fighting Norths and Pawnee Scouts: Narratives and Reminiscences of Military Service on the Old Frontier (New York: Privately Published, 1932), 10. 5 Report of Lieutenant General William T. Sherman, Headquarters Military Division of the Missouri, St. Louis, Mo., October 1, 1867, Annual Report of the Secretary of War, House Exec. Doc. 1, 40th Congress, 2nd Session, Serial Set 1324 (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1867), 37–38. 6 General George Crook to General Philip H. Sheridan, October 30, 1876. The letter was published in the New York Herald, November 10, 1876. 7 The assimilation argument was particularly attractive because it preempted possible criticisms from the Interior Department’s Office of Indian Affairs which saw the War Department as its principal rival over the issue of Indian policy. 8 Army and Navy Journal 14 (October 21, 1876): 166. 9 Mark van de Logt, War Party in Blue: Pawnee Scouts in the U.S. Army (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2010), 4. 10 LeRoy R. Hafen and Ann W. Hafen, eds., Powder River Campaigns and Sawyer’s Expedition of 1865: A Documentary Account Comprising Official Reports, Diaries, Contemporary Newspaper Accounts, and Personal Narratives (Glendale, CA: Arthur H. Clark, 1961), 47; George Bird Grinnell, Two Great Scouts and Their Pawnee Battalion: The Experiences of Frank J. North and Luther H. North, Pioneers in the Great West, 1856–1882, and Their Defence of the Building of the Union Pacific Railroad (Cleveland, OH: Arthur H. Clark, 1928), 110–111; John D. McDermott, Circle of Fire: The Indian War of 1865 (Mechanicsburg, PA: Stackpole Books, 2003), 113. 11 Carr’s report to Ruggles can be found in Fred H. Werner, The Summit Springs Battle, July 11, 1869 (Greeley, CO: Werner Publications, 1991), 73–74. 12 Report of General Carr to Brigadier General George Ruggles, June 30, 1869, Ibid., 76. 13 Carr’s report to Brigadier General Ruggles, July 20, 1869, Ibid., 66. 14 Ironically, it was Carr whose confidence in scouts was shaken in August 1881 when Apache scouts under his command mutinied at Cibicue Creek, Arizona Territory. This mutiny, however, was more the result of ambiguous behavior by the white troops than by any treachery on part of the scouts. 15 Grinnell, Two Great Scouts, 80–81. 16 Ibid. 188. 17 Ibid.

135

Mark van de Logt 18 H. E. Palmer, The Powder River Indian Expedition, 1865 (Omaha, NE: Republican Company, 1887), 19. 19 Wayne R. Kime, ed., The Powder River Expedition Journals of Colonel Richard Irving Dodge (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2000), entry for November 16, 1876. 20 Henry H. Bellas quoted in Jerome A. Greene, ed., Battles and Skirmishes of the Great Sioux War, 1876– 1877: The Military View (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1993), 173. 21 Robert Morris Peck, “Recollections of Early Times in Kansas Territory: From the Standpoint of a Regular Cavalryman,” Kansas Historical Society Collections 8 (1903–1904): 499. 22 Ibid. 23 Welch observed that after the fight “we found we had one hundred and seventeen prisoners, four squaws, and fifteen children. They were turned over to the Pawnees.” As stated above, Welch believed that the Pawnees killed the prisoners. Clearly Welch was in error here. He exaggerated the number of prisoners. Furthermore, the prisoners were never handed over to the Pawnees. Perhaps Welch wanted to emphasize his opinion of Indians. In his account he made the following personal observation: “I think it just as impossible to make a civilized man of the Indian as it would be to make a shepherd dog of a wolf, or a manly man of a dude. They do not in my opinion possess a single trait that elevates a man above a brute. They are treacherous, cowardly, and ungrateful, Cooper to the contrary notwithstanding.” Cyrus T. Brady, ed., Indian Fights and Fighters (Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press), 178. 24 United States Senate, Committee on Veterans’ Affairs, Medal of Honor Recipients, 1863-1973: “In the name of the Congress of the United States” (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1973), 284. According to Clarence Reckmeyer, Sergeant Traveling Bear was also known as “Big George,” as he was over six feet tall. Traveling Bear died at the hands of the Sioux at Massacre Canyon, Nebraska, August 6, 1873. Clarence Reckmeyer, “The Battle of Summit Springs,” Colorado Magazine 6 (November 1929): 215. 25 Charles M. Robinson, III, ed., The Diaries of John Gregory Bourke, Vol. 2, July 29, 1876–April 7, 1878 (Denton, TX: University of North Texas Press, 2003), 209, 219, 237. 26 William Philo Clark, The Indian Sign Language (Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press, 1982), 5. Such “scientific” interest could also lead to abuses. In 1869, American soldiers attacked and killed nine former Pawnee scouts and shipped the heads of six of these Pawnees to Washington, DC, for cranial research. Not until 1995 were these human remains repatriated to the Pawnee nation. The Pawnee people today consider these practices a great stain on the Army’s record of dealing with those tribal members who once served in the military. James Riding in, “Six Pawnee Crania: Historical and Contemporary Issues Associated with the Massacre and Decapitation of Pawnee Indians in 1869,” American Indian Culture and Research Journal 16 (1992): 101–119. A similar desecration happened to the remains of White Fox, a former Pawnee scout who died while touring Scandinavia in 1874. Swedish scientists dissected his corpse, skinned and tanned his head and torso for public display in a museum. White Fox’s remains were not repatriated until 1996. Dan Jibreus, White Fox Långa Resa (Nyskick, Sweden: Fri Tanke Főrlag, 2013). 27 “[Our] allies, the Pawnees, knew little or nothing of military formation,” Hynes wrote about Indian discipline, “Yet, we instinctively knew that order was there, which would appear and respond when the command was given.” Hynes wrote that “the white men were as wild as the Indians, and perhaps more so, because the latter’s observance was somewhat regulated by a set purpose; their attitude was the dignified performance of a rite; in fact, was semi-religious, while the former saw only an opportunity offering unlimited freedom to what they considered a frolic without curb or restraint.” William F. Hynes, Soldiers of the Frontier (Denver, CO: n. p., 1943), 129–138. 28 The Pawnees did have a generic term for “Indian” to distinguish Indians from white people. This term was cahriksicahriks (South Band dialect) or cahiksícahiks (Skiri dialect). The designation for the Pawnees in sign language was the same as “wolf.” Douglas R. Parks, “Pawnee” in Handbook of North American Indians 13, Part I, Plains, eds. William C. Sturtevant and Raymond J. Demallie (Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution, 2001), 543–545. 29 Gilbert L. Wilson, Goodbird the Indian: His Story (St. Paul: Minnesota Historical Society Press, 1985), 4. 30 See Preston Holder, The Hoe and the Horse on the Plains: A Study of Cultural Development among North American Indians (Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska press, 1991). According to Capt. John G. Bourke, intertribal warfare was mostly a matter of ethnic rivalry: “The Sioux fights the Pawnee because he is a Pawnee and the Shoshone because he is a Shoshone.” Robinson, III, The Diaries of John Gregory Bourke, 214–215. For the Pawnee term for Sioux, see Sturtevant, Handbook of North American Indians 13, 751. 31 For a detailed description of the Pawnee calumet ceremony, see Alice C. Fletcher, The Hako: Song, Pipe, and Unity in a Pawnee Calumet Ceremony (Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press, 1996). For torture,

136

“Are Not My Men the Same?”

32

33

34

35 36 37

38 39 40

41 42 43

44

by women, see James R. Murie, “Pawnee Indian Societies,” Anthropological Papers of the American Museum of Natural History 11, Part 7 (New York: American Museum of Natural History, 1914), 598–599. van de Logt, War Party in Blue, 14–16. See also Mark van de Logt, ‘The Powers of the Heavens Shall Eat of My smoke,’ The Significance of Scalping in Pawnee Warfare,” Journal of Military History 72, No. 1 (2008): 71–104. Alfred E. Sorenson, “A Quarter of a Century on the Frontier, or, The Adventures of Major Frank North, the ‘White Chief of the Pawnees’ The Story of his life as told by himself and written by Alfred Sorenson.” Unpublished Manuscript, Frank North Collection, RG 2321 (formerly MS 0448), Box 1, S4-F1, NSHS, Lincoln, NE. North’s authority was limited even on the field of battle. Although Luther North, Frank North’s younger brother, usually depicted his brother as leading the charge, it appears that the scouts themselves generally took the initiative. On more than one occasion they urged Frank North to push ahead in order to overtake a hostile party in a surprise attack. The Pawnees also insisted on using their own tactics; tactics with which North himself was unfamiliar. Rush Roberts (alias Ahrekahrard), questionnaire, August 1954, “Don Rickey Jr. Collection,” Denver Public Library, Denver, Colorado. Ibid. “Frank is a great friend of mine, & as evidence of that friendship, he proposes to bring me tomorrow a part of a scalp. His bucks gave him three scalps. One he is going to cut in two, subdivide one half give me one quarter & North the other—This makes us almost brothers in the Indian idea, & is the greatest compliment he can pay North & I. North is the commander of the Pawnees—I dont want the thing at all, but it would be an insult not to accept it.” Richard Irving Dodge Diary, November 30 and December 20, 1876, in Kime, Journals of Colonel Richard Irving Dodge, 99 and 133. In his published memoirs, Dodge described this particular event in more detail, but he exaggerated the event somewhat to achieve a more dramatic effect. See Richard I. Dodge, Our Wild Indians: Thirty-Three Years’ Personal Experience Among the Red Men of the Great West (Hartford, CT: A.D. Worthington and Company, 1883), 514–515. Dodge had met Frank White ten years earlier during some “scrapes” with the Sioux. See Dodge’s The Plains of North America and Their Inhabitants: Being a Description of the Plains, Game, Indians, &c. of the Great North American Desert (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1877), 326–327. Not all such gifts were appreciated. When a scout named Ralph Weeks offered Dodge a piece of buffalo meat sprinkled with gall, Dodge respectfully declined. Lucile M. Kane, ed., Military Life in Dakota: The Journal of Philippe Régis de Trobriand (St. Paul, MN: Alvord Memorial Commission, 1951), 60. Carr’s report to Brigadier General Ruggles, July 20, 1869, reprinted in Werner, The Summit Springs Battle, 62, 66. United States Senate, Committee on Veterans’ Affairs, Medal of Honor Recipients, 1863-1973: “In the name of the Congress of the United States” (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1973), 284. There is some confusion on who eventually received the medal. Luther North believed that Carr accidentally awarded the medal to the wrong man. In his letters and memoirs, the captain insisted that Carr intended to award the medal to Sergeant Co-rux-ah-kah-wah-de (“Traveling Bear”) for his brave action during the battle at Summit Springs, when he entered the ravine in pursuit of four Cheyennes, whom he subsequently killed and scalped. According to Captain North, his brother corrected the “error” by presenting the medal to Traveling Bear after all. If this was the case, the medal did go to the wrong man, although Sergeant Traveling Bear was certainly deserving of the honor. Luther North blamed the confusion on the fact that both men had similar names. Donald F. Danker, ed., Man of the Plains: Recollections of Luther North, 1856–1882 (Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press, 1961), 120. However, the citation makes it clear that Carr indeed meant Mad Bear in his report. Historian Jeff Broome discovered a letter from the Pawnee Agency dating to September 1869 that bears Mad Bear’s mark acknowledging receipt of the medal. Jeff Broome, Dog Soldier Justice: The Ordeal of Susanna Alderice in the Kansas Indian War (Lincoln, KS: Lincoln County Historical Society, 2003), 157–158. John McDermott, Circle of Fire, 234. Reckmeyer, “The Battle of Summit Springs,” 219–220. The original “Joint Resolution of the Nebraska State Legislature, 1870,” is on display in the State (Capitol) Building in Lincoln, NE. Copies of the resolution can be found in the Frank North Collection, Box 1, S2-F1, RG 2321 (formerly ms 0448), NSHS, Lincoln, NE. Crook’s original letter with instructions is in the Frank North Collection, RG 2321 (formerly MS 0448), Box 1, S1-F1, NSHS, Lincoln, NE.

137

Mark van de Logt 45 Frank North to General Philip Sheridan, April 13, 1877. Frank North Collection, RG 2321 (formerly MS 0448), Box 1, S1-F1, NSHS, Lincoln, NE. 46 Janney to Parker, February 17, 1870, Letters Received by the Office of Indian Affairs, 1824–1881, D100, M234, Roll 661, Pawnee Agency, 1859–1881 (Washington, DC: National Archives, 1956). 47 A copy of Hammond’s letter to Oakes Ames was sent to the Office of Indian Affairs, June 27, 1870, Letters Received by the Office of Indian Affairs, 1824–1881, D100, M234, Roll 661, Pawnee Agency, 1859–1881 (Washington, DC: National Archives, 1956). 48 Martha Royce Blaine, Some Things Are Not Forgotten: A Pawnee Family Remembers (Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press, 1997), 44. 49 van de Logt, War Party in Blue, 232–236. 50 Sheridan frequently talked of “wiping out” Indians, but once the Indian wars had ended, his rhetoric of extermination was replaced with sympathy for American Indians. See Paul Andrew Hutton, Phil Sheridan and His Army (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1974). George Crook became a sponsor of Indian rights during the Standing Bear trial. See Valerie Sherer Mathes and Richard Lowitt, The Standing Bear Controversy: Prelude to Indian Reform (Champaign-Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2003). 51 Today, the memory of the scouts lives on in the oral history of the tribe and the annual Pawnee Homecoming Powwow, which is celebrated every Fourth of July. Their stories and adventures have become legendary among the Pawnee people, who celebrate them as the first Pawnee-American patriots. Their service inspired subsequent generations of Pawnees, both male and female, to enter the military as well. Since the Indian wars, Pawnee warriors served in every major conflict: the Spanish-American War, World War I, World War II, Korea, Vietnam, the Gulf Wars, and Afghanistan. Currently, several Pawnees are trying to create an “old scouts” organization in honor of these men, so that their memory is never lost.

138

12 BUFFALO SOLDIERS IN AFRICA African American Officers in Liberia, 1910–1942 Brian G. Shellum

Between 1910 and 1930, the United States dispatched seventeen African American military officers to the West African country of Liberia to reorganize, train, and lead its constabulary forces. This American military assistance program and the accompanying U.S. economic and political support enabled the beleaguered Americo-Liberian regime in Monrovia to avoid territorial partition by colonial Britain and France, defeat a series of serious tribal rebellions, and eventually harness the economic potential of its resource-rich interior. In the face of great difficulties, African American officers created a Frontier Force led by a Liberian officer corps that set the stage for the survival and continued independence of Liberia.

American Role Founded in 1822 by the American Colonial Society and sustained by the United States Government, Liberia served as a refuge and home for former African American slaves and freedmen, and later provided sanctuary for Caribbean immigrants and recaptives from slave ships. These settlers, calling themselves Americo-Liberians, occupied a section of the West African coast wedged between British and French colonial possessions. Without the political support of the United States Government and military muscle of the United States Navy, this fragile black colony on the West African coast would have never been established, let alone survived.1 The trouble was American support perpetuated a system where Americo-Liberians subjugated and exploited the native population within the boundaries of Liberia. Never exceeding five percent of the total populace, fifteen thousand Americo-Liberians ruled over nearly three quarters of a million West African native inhabitants in the early part of the twentieth century.2 Whenever one of the powerful tribes like the Kru or Grebo rebelled against the Liberian regime, the U.S. Navy sailed in to teach the natives the hard lesson of gunboat diplomacy. This served not only to prop up the minority regime in Monrovia, but also eliminated any real incentive for the ruling minority to bring the native tribes into the existing social order. This failure to realize the potential of the ethnic majority served to stunt the economic growth of the nation and made it dependent on loans from Europe and the United States.3 Still, had it not been for the increased military, financial, and moral support of the U.S. in the years before World War I, it is unlikely that Liberia would have survived the partition of Africa that began in the 1880s. From the creation of the republic in 1847 to the first decade of the 139

Brian G. Shellum

nineteenth century, Liberia lost nearly half of its land area and one hundred fifty miles of coastline to France and Britain’s bordering colonies. Additionally, Germany held a controlling interest in Liberia’s frail economy and was not shy about employing its navy to protect its economic interests. If not for the U.S. Commission of 1909 and the subsequent program of economic and military assistance, Liberia would have been inexorably absorbed into the French colonies of Ivory Coast and Guinea and the British colony of Sierra Leone before 1914.4

U.S. Loan Agreement During its border and land disputes with Britain and France after the turn of the century, Liberia looked increasingly to the United States for help and political patronage. Though diplomatic support from Washington and occasional warships probably saved Liberian independence during several crises in the nineteenth century, the policy of the United States was mainly one of benevolent disinterest. A half-hearted American diplomatic objection to France in a dispute in 1907 resulted in Monrovia losing more than two thousand square miles of territory. When a disagreement with Great Britain seemed on the verge of virtual annexation of Liberia over a loan dispute, the United States embarked on a more serious and vigorous effort to assist Monrovia in 1909.5 After a request for assistance by the government in Monrovia, the United States sent a commission to assess the situation in Liberia in early 1909. This group included the U.S. military attaché assigned to Great Britain who had the mission to assess the security situation in Liberia. The commission recommended that the U.S. government help Monrovia quickly resolve its boundary disputes, negotiate a loan to pay off its foreign debt by assuming control over the collection of Liberian customs, and reorganize the existing constabulary. With these commitments, the United States embarked upon a unique and enduring imperialist mission in West Africa, with African American officers training and commanding the Liberian Frontier Force. This cleared the way for the implementation of the U.S. Loan Agreement of 1912.6 Had the United States not felt a strong moral responsibility for the situation in Liberia, it would never have agreed to this risky and open-ended undertaking. Washington felt an obligation to guarantee the future of Liberia for two reasons. First, the U.S. populated Liberia with freed African American slaves and freedmen who were not welcome at home. Second, it intervened with money and personnel time and time again over the years to prop up the weak government in Monrovia, defend it against internal threats from the indigenous tribes, and protect it from external menace posed by France and Britain. Washington was unwilling to cut its losses and let European colonial powers partition the country.

Frontier Force The Liberian Frontier Force was a deeply flawed organization when African American officers began their mission of restructuring and retraining it in the second decade of the twentieth century. Liberia’s constitution prohibited standing armies as a threat to democracy, and Monrovia relied on a motley collection of militia units until required by treaty stipulations with the British and French in 1908 to create a Liberian Frontier Force. In the same year, Great Britain sent three white British officers to help form and lead the force; a year later, the Monrovia government, however, expelled these men after they engineered a failed coup. The Frontier Force was never a very large organization, ranging in size from about five hundred officers and men when the American mission began, growing to about one thousand at peak strength later.7 The Frontier Force exhibited a dual behavior that characterized colonial forces operating elsewhere in Africa. The soldiers of the force, recruited from the interior tribes of Liberia, waged 140

Buffalo Soldiers in Africa

war based on African rules and ethnic traditions, which included raiding for booty, attacking for revenge, and taking hostages or slaves. Monrovia recruited soldiers and auxiliaries from certain tribes and employed them against other tribes who were traditional enemies, and often rewarded these native troops with plunder since they had no money to pay them. The officer corps, who were Americo-Liberian, tried to limit such practices and apply western military doctrine and leadership principles. The U.S. officers who began leading the force in 1912 attempted to instill professionalism and eliminate these tribal practices through training, indoctrination, and regular pay, but met with limited success.8 African American officers were only partially successful in reorganizing the Frontier Force due to Liberian intransigence and lack of resources. The xenophobic regime in Monrovia distrusted all outsiders, especially whites but also African Americans, and resisted pressure to change its oppressive policies toward the tribes. The Americo-Liberians also opposed all attempts to eliminate the endemic graft and patronage of the one-party system that ruled Liberia. What’s more, the cash-poor Liberian government diverted American money provided by the U.S. Loan Agreement of 1912 to other projects it considered more important. And lastly, the regime in Monrovia was only interested in training an army that was sufficient to control the tribes and maintain the borders, but not so effective as to be a threat to the regime.9 The program undertaken in Liberia from 1910 to 1930 by the United States was military assistance on a shoestring budget. Though the plan began in 1910 with good intentions, it suffered delays, false starts, and insufficient funding and lacked enough qualified African American officers to produce decisive results. World War I detrimentally impacted the military aid program and nearly destroyed the fragile economy of Liberia. Though the war diverted the attention and resources of France, Great Britain, and Germany at a time when Liberia was vulnerable to economic pressure and territorial partition, it also distracted the United States when it might have lent more economic, political, and military support to Liberia.

American Officers Seventeen African American officers served in Liberia between 1910 and 1930 under the terms of the 1912 U.S. Loan Agreement. During this period, the United States appointed three of these men, Benjamin O. Davis, John Green, and Charles Young, the only three black Regular Army officers serving at the time, as military attachés to the American Consulate in Monrovia. They reported to the War Department in Washington but worked under the authority of the resident U.S. Consul General as advisors on the military assistance mission in Liberia. The other fourteen were typically former African American non-commissioned officers or officers with temporary commissions who had served with black volunteer regiments. They worked under contract with the government in Monrovia, received commissions from the President of Liberia, collected wages paid from the loan agreement, and served as officers in the Frontier Force.10 To better understand the motivations of the American officers posted to Liberia, it is important to recognize the difference between the Regular Army officers assigned as the military attaché and the volunteer officers who served with the Liberian Frontier Force. The “Old Army” supremacy of Regular Army officers still reigned in 1910, despite the doubling of the officer corps from about two thousand prior to the outbreak of the Spanish-American War in 1898 to four thousand in 1910. West Pointers still predominated the ranks with only a small number of volunteer officers awarded Regular Army commissions and a smaller number of enlisted soldiers who earned Regular Army commissions after serving three years and then taking a commissioning examination.11 The military attaché, who was a Regular Army officer, played a critical role in the success of the mission in Liberia as the War Department’s senior representative at the consulate in Monrovia. The 141

Brian G. Shellum

U.S. military attaché corps at the time was very small, numbering no more than twenty U.S. Army officers throughout the world. In 1910, eighteen U.S. Army officers served as military attachés in eight European, eleven Latin American, three Asian, and one African capital, with some accredited to multiple countries. Those posted to Europe collected information and reported chiefly on military developments and technology with a view to improve the U.S. military. American military attachés in Latin America, Africa, and Asia gathered information mainly on the geography, resources, and military affairs of nations with whom the U.S. might form alliances or come into conflict. As Haiti discovered with Captain Charles Young, who served in Port-au-Prince from 1904 to 1907, the assignment of a U.S. military attaché could portend an invasion.12 The fourteen American lieutenants, captains, and majors who served in the Frontier Force were a mix of former non-commissioned officers who served with the Buffalo Soldier regiments of the Regular Army and volunteer officers awarded commissions during the Spanish American and Philippine wars. Some of those posted to Liberia after 1918 had served in Europe during World War I as National Guard or Reserve Officers. Six had either high school or college military cadet training, and four others attended officer training camps during the First World War. Generally, the former non-commissioned officers proved efficient trainers and had more field experience, while the volunteer officers were better prepared for staff work and leading soldiers. However, none of these skills guaranteed success.13

Military Mission Lieutenant Benjamin Davis, Tenth U.S. Cavalry, the first American military attaché and the first African American military officer to serve in Monrovia from 1910 to 1911, scrutinized the mission and created the basic plan to reorganize and retrain the Frontier Force. Davis earned a Regular Army commission as a cavalry officer in 1901 after a short stint as an enlisted soldier, and he served as a lieutenant with the Tenth Cavalry on the U.S. frontier and in the Philippines prior to his assignment to Liberia.14 He reported many of the problems the American training endeavor would eventually encounter in Liberia: Americo-Liberian resistance to change, a policy of exploitation and mistreatment of the ethnic native population, and a Liberian Frontier Force that was a menace to the people it was intended to protect. Davis witnessed firsthand when Frontier Force soldiers mutinied and held the Liberian Secretary of War hostage for payment of back wages. The mutiny ended when an Americo-Liberian officer convinced the soldiers there was no money in the treasury to pay them.15 By the middle of 1911, Davis began to tire of Liberian intransigence as well as the lack of support by the War Department in the United States. Moreover, he contracted blackwater fever, a deadly disease that afflicted new arrivals to the West African coast, and was confined to his bed with fever, chills, and anemia for two weeks and never fully recovered. In July 1911, he wrote Washington asking that he be recalled, noting that he had been absent from his regiment too long and that his service in Liberia was ruining his health. Upon his return to the United States, Davis offered his recommendations that a cadre of four officers from the U.S. Regular Army train a Liberian force of fifteen hundred men. He considered both the Liberian Frontier Force and the Liberian militia as worthless, and he regarded them “more as a menace to law and order, than as a force guaranteeing protection.” Davis predicted difficulties in getting the Liberian government to agree to give the four American officers sufficient authority to turn the Liberian Frontier Force into an effective organization. The key to this effort would be money for paying and equipping the force, and this forecast proved prophetic.16 Major Charles Young, Ninth U.S. Cavalry, launched the military assistance mission as the military attaché from 1912 to 1915. A stronger and more experienced leader than Davis, Young 142

Buffalo Soldiers in Africa

had previously served as a platoon leader and troop commander on the western frontier and in combat in the Philippines, as a battalion commander of the Ninth Ohio Volunteer Battalion during the Spanish-American War, and as a military attaché in Hispaniola (Haiti and the Dominican Republic).17 He was uniquely qualified to undertake the difficult mission of initiating the military undertaking in Liberia as the most senior of the three African American Regular Army officers on active duty and the only one to graduate from West Point. His previous attaché tour in the Caribbean prepared him inimitably for the diplomatic and political challenges he faced in Liberia.18 The U.S. Army allowed Young to hand pick three officers to take with him to Liberia to train and command the Frontier Force. These officers were not mercenaries; rather, the War Department selected the men, the State Department approved it, and the President of the United States nominated them. The three served under contract with the Liberian Government who paid them from the funds collected by the U.S.-led receivership. While Young’s mission was to advise on the retraining of the force, these Americans instructed, indoctrinated, disciplined, and commanded the units. The difference was important as Young was a military attaché and still a member of the Regular Army, and therefore forbidden to command the Frontier Force, while the contracted officers were civilians and under no such restrictions.19 Young had full discretion to select one major and two captains to lead his effort, and all three of these officers and subsequent candidates accepted their positions with the Liberian Frontier Force for similar reasons. First and perhaps most importantly, Young, a man they knew, respected, and had served with, asked them. As with Young, the powerful draw of service to black Africa influenced them. The salary and status that came with the commissions were also a strong incentive for the three. The commander of the Frontier Force received a major’s pay of two thousand dollars and the others a captain’s wage of sixteen hundred dollars annually, the same rate as in the U.S. Army and more money and prestige than they could hope to earn in America. And certainly the draw of adventure was a strong factor in young men who worked previously at civilian jobs in a racially segregated society.20 Young’s handpicked team of Major Wilson Ballard, Captain Arthur Brown, and Captain Richard Newton, though too small a group to make a decisive impact, enabled Young to begin reorganizing and retraining the Liberian Frontier Force. They commanded forces in the field that defeated significant tribal revolts by the Kru in 1912 and Gio and Mano in 1913; a time that witnessed the temporary medical evacuation of Young to the U.S. with blackwater fever and a gunshot wound suffered in combat with the natives. The addition of Captain Eldridge Hawkins, Lieutenant Joseph Martin, and Lieutenant William York enabled the Frontier Force to put down rebellions by the Kissi and Kru tribes in 1913 after Brown departed and Newton died of disease.21 Young and Ballard also served on commissions trying resolve Monrovia’s boundary disputes with Britain and France. In addition, Major Young established an officer training academy to begin developing Liberia’s future military leaders. Near the end of his tour, Young described the soldiers of the LFF as “not one unit inferior to the soldier spirit to our best black troops.22 Lieutenant John Green, Twenty-Fifth U.S. Infantry, who served as military attaché in Liberia from 1916 to 1920, accomplished a great deal with scarce resources and manpower. Green had enlisted in 1899, earned a commission as a Regular Army infantry officer in 1901, and served in the Philippine Islands and western posts before his arrival in Liberia. He continued the work begun by Charles Young to advise the U.S. consul general and regime in Monrovia on training and maintaining the Liberian Frontier Force, in spite of World War I raging in Europe and the near collapse of the Liberian economy. During the war years, Green also reinvigorated the neglected Liberian officer academy established by Young.23 143

Brian G. Shellum

The initial American officer group on the ground when Green arrived, comprising a promoted Major William York and recently arrived Captains James Gillespie and William Rountree, commanded forces in the field and defeated a major Kru rebellion in 1915. The first two officers departed in 1916, however, after a destructive internal leadership quarrel; Rountree left in 1917 out of frustration with the Liberian Government. Major John Anderson, who arrived in mid-1917 and served the next three years as the lone American officer with the Frontier Force, defeated serious tribal revolts by the Grebo in the south and Gola and Gbandi in the north in 1919. He did so with the help of an increasingly capable group of young Americo-Liberian officers, though not fully ready to lead. In 1918, Anderson commented: “I do not know of one officer among the Liberians who could take the Frontier Force now and run it without a breakdown.”24 Near the end of Green’s tour of duty in 1919, the State Department proposed a list of new U.S. officers for the Frontier Force and sent it to Colonel Charles Young, who had been medically retired and promoted in 1917. Young, recalled to active duty and slated to replace Green, responded with a letter setting out his advice on who was fit to send to Liberia. Colonel Young rejected outright the list of twelve men proposed by the State Department on grounds that they were inadequately educated, unfit by temperament, too old, or physically not up to the rigors of life in the bush. Young warned of the case of Captain James Gillespie who had so badly damaged the morale and leadership of the Frontier Force in 1916 when he challenged Major York’s leadership.25 Young made clear in his letter the criterion for a successful candidate and provided his own list of possible selectees. His touchstones of success are noteworthy since they directly influenced the success or failure of enterprise in Liberia. Young noted: “Youth, activity, resourcefulness, initiative, education, and a love and sympathy for the work must characterize every man sent there.” He stressed: “This work requires continuous training, hiking through the jungle, and almost incessant fighting; and without the man who is the leader possesses pep and push and can convince the native soldier of his bravery in the field and his love of his men, he will be a failure.” Lastly, Young warned against aspirants who were “desk-men” who sat in Monrovia while things around them went to pieces.26 If Colonel Young had lived longer during his second tour from 1920 to 1922, he might have been able to make real progress with his mission. He remained optimistic to the end, sure that the United States could find a solution to what he called the “Liberian muddle.” His goal was “to see a decent and stable Government which will protect the native population, upon which every interest of the Republic, if it survives, must depend.” His new team of officers, comprising captains Harry Atwood, William Nabors, and Allen Bean, arrived in 1920 and joined Major Anderson to continue the work of training and leading the Frontier Force.27 During an intelligence mission to Nigeria in 1922, Young died from his lingering illnesses, leaving his mission and work in Liberia uncompleted. The War Department elected not to replace him, preferring to use this scarce military attaché allocation elsewhere in the world, and this set back the program in Monrovia significantly. Anderson shipped out in 1920 due to sickness, Atwood and Bean became disenchanted with the mission and departed shortly after Young’s death in early 1922, which left Nabors to deal with a more assertive Liberian Government intent on wresting control of the Frontier Force from American command.28 After the departure of Nabors, the arrival of Captain Moody Staten in 1923 and Captain Hansen Outley in 1926 did little to forestall a power struggle over control of the Frontier Force, especially without the critical leadership and guidance of a Regular Army military attaché.29 After the Liberian Government forced Moody Staten to leave in 1927 and Hansen Outley to ship out in 1930, conditions were set for a major transition in American military support to Liberia. 144

Buffalo Soldiers in Africa

By this time, the United States Government had tired of supporting the Liberian Government with direct assistance, while the Great Depression purloined the rest of its attention. Moreover, the Liberian Government was dissatisfied with the U.S. selection of black former non-commissioned officers and volunteer officers to command the Frontier Force, considering the Americans unsuitable officer material. Monrovia wanted West Point trained African American officers, and none were alive or serving at the time. Enter the American Firestone Corporation, prepared to pay off Liberia’s debts and develop the economy of Liberia.30

Privatization Harvey Firestone approached Washington in 1924 with an offer to negotiate a new loan for the regime in Monrovia in exchange for an agreement to establish a substantial rubber production enterprise in Liberia. This plan promised to break the British monopoly on rubber production as well as shift the responsibility for support of Liberia from the United States Government to Firestone. After three torturous years of negotiations among Firestone, Monrovia, and Washington, the Liberian Parliament signed in 1926 and ratified in 1927 an agreement. It led to an era of private or capitalist support for the regime in Monrovia with a smaller role for the U.S. Government. It also led to the elimination of African American officers serving under contract with the Liberian Frontier Force.31 Liberia had an officer corps showing signs of military capabilities by the time Firestone stepped in, thanks to a decade of American leadership, mentoring, and training. Americo-Liberian junior officers had served an important role leading the Frontier Force in combat since the rebellion of the Kru in 1915. A decade later, the best of these lieutenants advanced to the rank of captain and had further sharpened their skills as small unit leaders. When American Major Moody Staten departed in 1927, the Liberian Secretary of War directed that he turn over command to a newly promoted Liberian Major William Boyle. This was a power play by the Liberian Government to seize control of the Liberian Frontier Force and put the remaining American officer, Captain Hansen Outley, in a subordinate position outranked by a Liberian major. Americo-Liberian officers commanded and controlled the Frontier Force thereafter.32 Firestone and the State Department commenced appointing U.S. officers under the agreement of 1926 after the 1930 departure of Captain Outley. The Liberian Government continued to object to the selection of black former non-commissioned officers and demanded qualified Regular Army officers who were graduates of West Point. However, there were none available and a very short-lived experiment assigning a white officer named George Lewis from 1930 to 1932 failed.33 In the end, Firestone and the State Department identified and dispatched a mutually acceptable African American candidate who had served in Liberia previously, Major William Nabors, to serve with the Liberian Frontier Force; but he did so under quite different terms.34 He served strictly as a trainer and advisor from 1936 to 1942, and the Liberian Frontier force continued to be commanded by Liberian officers.35 On the heels of a 1930 League of Nations investigation which found the Liberian Government guilty of employing forced labor and using the Frontier Force to round up laborers, the last great tribal revolt of the twentieth century in Liberia erupted on the Kru coast. The Kru tribes around Sasstown rebelled in 1931 in a militant resurgence that was a direct result of the slave labor scandal and years of mistreatment by the government in Monrovia. The United States and European countries sympathized with the Kru and put pressure on Liberia to reform its policies and improve treatment of the tribes. Distracted in part by the economic impact of the Great Depression and frustrated by Monrovia’s delaying tactics and intransigence, a political maneuver that ultimately prevailed in the end, Washington, London, and Paris found themselves on the 145

Brian G. Shellum

outside of Liberian politics. The Liberian Frontier Force, under the leadership of Liberian officers, successfully quashed the revolt by 1936.36

Mission Accomplishments In spite of its limitations, the American military assistance program discouraged France, Great Britain, and Germany from taking advantage of Liberia’s weaknesses in the first two decades of the twentieth century. After the failed mutiny of 1909, when the British colonial office conspired with the British officers of the Frontier Force to seize control of Liberia, the United States took decisive steps to safeguard the sovereignty of the nation. The political support and guarantees afforded by the U.S. Government and the physical presence of African American officers on the ground in Liberia after 1910 ensured that Monrovia retained its independence.37 The African American military attachés who advised the regime in Monrovia and the black officers serving in the Liberian Frontier Force played key roles in settling boundary conflicts with Britain and France. It was a vital recommendation of the U.S. Commission of 1909 that U.S. officials assist in delimiting and controlling the border areas in the northwest with Sierra Leone and in the southeast with the Ivory Coast. Black American officers also served an important responsibility beginning in 1912 commanding contingents of Frontier Force troops near the borders as required by the treaties signed with London in 1906 and Paris in 1907. This served to eliminate any chance of these countries encroaching on the border areas and appropriating Liberian territory.38 Aside from deterring France and Britain from further territorial encroachment, American training and leadership enabled the Americo-Liberians to defeat a succession of very serious tribal revolts between 1912 and 1936. American officers led forces and permitted the regime in Monrovia to put down significant rebellions by the Kru in 1912, Gio and Mano in 1913, Kissi in 1913, Kru again in 1915, Grebo in 1919, and Gola and Gbandi in 1919. Significantly, in the last three uprisings, young Liberian officers played important roles and showed the impact of American leadership development. Indeed, the Frontier Force under Liberian officers suppressed the last of the tribal revolts, the Kru rebellion of 1931–1936. The defeat of ethnic tribes enabled Americo-Liberians to gain control of the hinterland and exploit the wealth in natural resources it contained. Monrovia stationed Frontier Force contingents in permanent camps in the northwest, southeast, and inland to expand the reach of the regime’s influence beyond its historical population centers on the coast. It would take many years, but the subjugation of the tribes and the control of the hinterlands allowed Monrovia to harness the economic potential of the nation. Complete success as envisioned by the United States and the African American officers was for all practical purposes unachievable, especially in the face of a corrupt, one-party Americo-Liberian regime that was ambivalent about the task from the start. Monrovia wanted the American officers to train a force that was just good enough to cow the tribes and keep the colonial powers at bay, but not so good as to pose a threat to the regime. In the end, it was the Liberian Government who achieved its goals of avoiding partition, subjugating the tribes, and eventually wresting control of the Frontier Force from American control.

Conclusion The United States military assistance mission in Liberia that began in 1910 and lasted in one form or another until 1942 was unique. The Americans trained constabulary forces following the invasion and conquest of Cuba, the Philippines, and Haiti in the early 1900s, but only after 146

Buffalo Soldiers in Africa

occupation with large numbers of troops who organized and trained the host nation units. Only in Liberia did the United States attempt to handle such a military mission with a handful of African American officers on a modest budget. From its onset, this unusual military assistance mission was a notable though qualified success, helping Liberia defeat internal and external threats to its sovereignty and setting the conditions for the Americo-Liberian regime to stay in power another seventy years.

Notes 1 Harold D. Nelson, Liberia, A Country Study (Washington, DC: American University, 1985), 7–41. 2 Liberian territory embraced scattered colonies of Americo-Liberians and about sixteen indigenous ethnic groups of the Niger-Congo family. These native tribes further subdivided into four ethnic clusters based on cultural and linguistic similarities, comprising the Kwa (Bassa, Belle, Dey, Grebo, Krahn, Kru, and Sapo); Mende-Fu (Gbandi, Gio/Dan, Kpelle, Loma, and Mano/Ma); Mende-Tan (Mandingo and Vai); and Mel (Gola and Kissi). 3 Nelson, Liberia, 7–41. 4 Ibid.; M.B. Akpan, “Black Imperialism: Americo-Liberian Rule over the African Peoples of Liberia, 1841–1964,” Canadian Journal of African Studies 1, No. 2 (1973): 223–224; Claude A. Clegg, “A Splendid Type of Colored American: Charles Young and the Reorganization of the Liberian Frontier Force,” The International Journal of African Historical Studies 29, no.1 (1996): 47–48; George W. Ellis, “Dynamic Factors in the Liberian Situation,” The Journal of Race Development 1 (January 1911): 258–265. 5 J.H. Mower, “The Republic of Liberia,” Journal of Negro History 32 (1947): 269–271; James Ciment, Another America: The Story of Liberia and the Former Slaves Who Ruled It (New York: Hill and Wang, 2013), 138. 6 “Report of Affairs in Liberia, “61st Congress, 2nd Session, 1909–1910, Senate Documents, Vol. 60, Washington, GPO, Document 467, 1–2. 7 Ellis, “Dynamic Factors in the Liberian Situation,” 270–271; Jeremy I. Levitt, The Evolution of Deadly Conflict in Liberia: From ‘Paternaltarianism’ to State Collapse (Durham, NC: Carolina Academic Press, 2005), 141–142; Harrison Akingbade, “The Pacification of the Liberian Hinterland,” The Journal of Negro History 79 (Summer 1994): 280–281; Timothy D. Nevin, “The Uncontrollable Force: A Brief History of the Liberian Frontier Force, 1908–1944,” The International Journal of African Historical Studies 44 (2011): 1–8. 8 Ellis, “Dynamic Factors in the Liberian Situation,” 270–271; Levitt, The Evolution of Deadly Conflict in Liberia, 141–142; Akingbade, “The Pacification of the Liberian Hinterland,” 280–281; Nevin, “The Uncontrollable Force: A Brief History of the Liberian Frontier Force, 1908–1944,” 1–8. 9 Donald Ranard, ed., Liberians: An Introduction to their History and Culture (Washington, DC: Center for Applied Linguistics, Cultural Orientation Resource Center, 2005), 13; Chargé Reed Paige Clark to Secretary of State, December 3, 1926, Chargé C.E. Macy to the Secretary of State, July 27, 1927. 10 Brian G. Shellum, Black Officer in a Buffalo Soldier Regiment: The Military Career of Charles Young (Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press, 2010), 204–228, 263–279. 11 Russell F. Weigley, History of the United States Army (New York: MacMillian Publishing Co, 1967), 356–358. 12 Memorandum to the Adjutant General from the Officer in Charge, MID, Major Arthur L. Wagner, 28 September 1897; Votaw, “U.S. Military Attachés, 1885–1919,” 235–241. According to Votaw, the countries that had military attachés accredited in 1910 included Austria-Hungary, France, Germany, Great Britain, Italy, Norway, Russia, Sweden, Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Costa Rica, Cuba, Ecuador, Guatemala, Mexico, Paraguay, Peru, Uruguay, China, Japan, the Philippines, Turkey, and Liberia. Haiti was invaded by U.S. Marines and sailors in 1915 using maps and intelligence provided by Young. 13 Summary of biographical entries in the succeeding endnotes are from research for my upcoming book: A Pestiferous Rotation: African American Officers in Liberia, 1910–1942. 14 Davis, Benjamin Oliver, Sr.: born May 28, 1880; first lieutenant, Eighth Volunteer U.S. Infantry, Spanish-American War, 1898–1899; enlisted, private, corporal, sergeant major, Ninth U.S. Cavalry June 1899–1901; commissioned Regular Army second lieutenant, Tenth U.S. Cavalry, February 2, 1901; promoted, first lieutenant, March 30, 1905; served Philippines, Fort Washakie, Wyoming; Professor of Military Science and Tactics at Wilberforce University 1901–1909; military attaché to Liberia, 1910–1911.

147

Brian G. Shellum 15 Index to General Correspondence of the Adjutant General’s Officer, 1890–1917, Roll 298, M 698, NARA; Marvin E. Fletcher, America’s First Black General (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1989), 39–44. 16 “The Military Forces of Liberia,” Benjamin O. Davis, October 12, 1911, NAAMMC; Fletcher, America’s First Black General, 43–44; Marvin E. Fletcher, The Black Soldier and Officer in the United States Army, 1891–1917 (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1974), 94. 17 Young, Charles: born March 12, 1864, United States Military Academy, 1884–1889, commissioned Regular Army second lieutenant Ninth U.S. Cavalry 1889, Ninth U.S. Cavalry service at Fort Robinson, Nebraska and Fort DuChesne, Utah, 1889–1894; professor of military science at Wilberforce University, Ohio, 1894–1898; volunteer major and commander of Ninth Ohio Infantry Battalion, Spanish-American War, 1898–1899; Ninth U.S. Cavalry service Philippine War, Presidio of San Francisco, California, acting superintendent of Sequoia National Park, 1899–1903; military attaché to Hispaniola (Dominican Republic and Haiti), 1903–1907; Ninth U.S. Cavalry service Philippines and Fort D.A. Russell, Wyoming, 1907–1912; military attaché to Liberia, 1912–1915. 18 Shellum, Black Officer in a Buffalo Soldier Regiment, 159–181. Young was fluent in German, Spanish, and French. He mastered the Haitian Creole dialect soon after assuming his post in Port-au-Prince and authored an English-Creole Dictionary which he sent to the War Department. 19 Clegg, “A Splendid Type of Colored American,” 55–56. 20 War Department to Captain Young, January 15, 1912, 013, M613, NARA; Acting Secretary of State Wilson to American Minister, Monrovia, March 7, 1912, U.S. Department of State, Foreign Relations of the United States, 1912: Liberia (Washington, D.C.: GPO, 1912), 664. 21 Ballard, Wilson: military cadet, Wilberforce University, Ohio, 1898; lieutenant and adjutant, Ninth Ohio Volunteer Battalion, first lieutenant, Forty-Eighth U.S. Volunteer Infantry, Philippine War, 1899; major, Liberian Frontier Force, 1912–1915. Browne, Arthur Albert: military cadet, Wilberforce University, Ohio, 1898–1902; corporal, Ninth Ohio Volunteer Battalion, Spanish-American War, 1898–1899; captain, Liberian Frontier Force, 1912–1913. Newton, Richard Harper, Jr.: enlisted Ninth U.S. Cavalry, 1900–1911, Philippine War service, 1900–1902, Army War College Detachment, Fort Myer, Virginia, 1911; captain, Liberian Frontier Force, 1912–1914. Hawkins, Eldridge Thornton: military cadet at Armstrong Technical High School, Washington, D.C., 1907; clerk at the U.S. Consulate in Monrovia, Liberia, 1911–1913; Captain, Liberian Frontier Force, 1913–1915. Martin, Joseph H.: military cadet in high school, Washington, D.C.; first lieutenant, District of Colombia National Guard; lieutenant, Liberian Frontier Force, 1914–1915. York, William Henry: military cadet at Wilberforce University, 1912; lieutenant, captain, major, Liberian Frontier Force, 1914–1917. 22 Shellum, Black Officer in a Buffalo Soldier Regiment, 204–228; Young to Col. Delamere Skerrett, July 26, 1915; Young to Col. Alexander Piper, July 26, 1915, USMA Library Special Collections. 23 Green, John Ernest: born April 27, 1878; Walden University, Tennessee, 1899; enlisted Twenty-Fourth U.S. Infantry Regiment, Alcatraz Island, California, Philippine Islands, 1899–1901; commissioned, Regular Army second lieutenant, Twenty-Fifth U.S. Infantry, Philippine Islands, 1901; service Twenty-Fifth U.S. Infantry at Fort Reno, Oklahoma, Fort Bliss, Texas, 1902–1909; professor of military science, Wilberforce University, Wilberforce, Ohio, 1909–1913; service Twenty-Fifth U.S. Infantry, Schofield Barracks, Hawaii, 1913–1916; military attaché to Liberia, 1916–1919. 24 John H. Anderson to Mr. Cooke, State Department, March 8, 1917, M613, Roll 11, 332–333, NARA; Chargé Bundy to Acting Secretary of State, June 9, 1919, U.S. Department of State, Foreign Relations of the United States, 1919, Vol. 2: Liberia (Washington, D.C.: GPO, 1919), 529–30; Gillespie, James R.: enlisted service, Ninth U.S. Cavalry, Tenth U.S. Cavalry, and Twenty-Fifth U.S. Infantry, private through master sergeant, Indian Wars, Spanish-American War, Philippine War, China Boxer Rebellion, 1881–1915; first lieutenant, Eighth U.S. Volunteer Infantry, Cuba, 1898–1899; Liberia Frontier Force, 1915–1917. Rountree, William H.: enlisted, Ninth U.S. Cavalry, Fort D.A. Russell, Wyoming, 1909– 1915; lieutenant, captain, Liberian Frontier Force, 1915–1918. Anderson, John H.: enlisted, private, Twenty-Fifth U.S. Infantry, 1890–1893; enlisted, private, post teacher, saddler sergeant, sergeant major, Ninth U.S. Cavalry, 1893–1898; honorable mention, Battle of Santiago, Cuba, 1898; first lieutenant, Tenth U.S. Volunteer Infantry, 1898–1899; first lieutenant, Forty-Eighth U.S. Volunteer Infantry, Philippines, 1899–1901; enlisted, Ninth U.S. Cavalry and Twenty-Fourth U.S. Infantry, 1901–1915; retired April 19, 1915; major, Liberian Frontier Force, 1917–1922. 25 Colonel Charles Young to the Honorable T.C. Mitchell, Commissioner General to the Republic of Liberia, March 27, 1919, NAAMCC. The list of candidates Young rejected included John Watson, Antony Osborne, Charles Carver, William Payne, Horace Bivens (application withdrawn), Benjamin A.

148

Buffalo Soldiers in Africa

26 27

28

29

30 31

32 33 34

35

36

37

38

Anderson, D.P. Greene, John R. Green, Samuel F. Sewell, Elmer C. Smith, Robert Johnson, and W.A. Vrooman. Young noted if forced to choose from the list, he would have chosen John R. Greene and W.A. Vrooman in spite of their age. Colonel Charles Young to the Honorable T.C. Mitchell, Commissioner General to the Republic of Liberia, March 27, 1919, NAAMCC. Atwood, Harry Oliver: enlisted, corporal, Ninth Ohio Volunteer Infantry Battalion, Spanish-American War, 1898–1899; officer training, Fort Des Moines, Iowa, 1917; captain, 368th Infantry Regiment, France, World War I, 1918–1919; Captain, Liberian Frontier Force, 1919–1922. Nabors, William Durward: enlisted, Ninth U.S. Cavalry, 1912–1915; enlisted, Tenth U.S. Cavalry, 1916–1917; Mexican Punitive Expedition, 1916–1917; officer training school, Texas National Guard, Leone Springs, Texas, 1917; second lieutenant, 366th Infantry Regiment, France, World War I, 1917–1918; captain Liberian Frontier Force, 1919–1923. Bean, Allen Clyde: military cadet, Wilberforce University, 1918; attended officer training, Camp Dodge, Iowa, 1918; captain, Liberian Frontier Force, 1919–1922. Ada Young to Charles Young, March 8, 1920, NAAMCC; Major John Anderson to Secretary of State, February 17, 1923, Secretary of War James Cooper to Major John Anderson, May 8, 1922, M613, Roll 11, 645–646, NARA. Staten, Moody: enlisted, Twenty-Fifth U.S. Infantry, captain, infantry, Ninety-Second Division, World War I, 1917–1919; captain, major, Liberian Frontier Force, 1923–1927. Outley, Hansen: enlisted Ninth U.S. Cavalry, 1913–1917; non-commissioned officer, Purple Heart and the French Croix de Guerre, 349th Field Artillery Regiment, France, World War I, 1917–1919; enlisted, Ninth U.S. Cavalry, 1919– 1925; captain, Liberian Frontier Force, 1926–1930. Chargé Reed Paige Clark to Secretary of State, December 3, 1926, M613, Roll 11, 1029–1034, NARA. U.S. Department of State, Foreign Relations of the United States, 1925, Vol. 2: Liberia (Washington, D.C.: GPO, 1925), 367–499; U.S. Department of State, Foreign Relations of the United States, 1926,Vol. 2: Liberia (Washington, D.C.: GPO, 1926), 503–596. Liberian Secretary of War James W. Cooper to Major Moody Staten, May 26, 1927, M613, Roll 11, 1071, NARA. Lewis was not a West Point graduate, rather a soldier of fortune and police contractor who had served in the Panama Canal Zone, Puerto Rico, Santa Domingo, and Haiti. Captain Nabors had developed additional military skills and training between his departure from Liberia in 1923 and his return to Monrovia thirteen years later that made him more acceptable to the Liberian Government. After recovering from the debilitating effects of chronic malaria and other health problems brought on by three years of service in Liberia, he became a U.S. Civil Service employee, a member of the Municipal Planning Board of Orange, New Jersey, and beginning in 1931, he helped organize the New Jersey State Colored Militia. He served from 1931 until his appointment with the Liberian Frontier Force in 1936 as a trainer and company commander of A Company, First Battalion, New Jersey National Guard. “Soldier and Diplomat,” The Carolina Times, December 19, 1942, 2; Memo of Acting Chief of Near Eastern Affairs (Alling), July 28, 1939, U.S. Department of State, Foreign Relations of the United States, 1939, Vol. 4: Liberia (Washington, D.C.: GPO, 1939), 606–607. Major William D. Nabors, who had served in the Liberian Frontier Forces from 1920 to 1923 and again from 1936 to 1942, sailed to Liberia in April 1943 with an all-black New Jersey National Guard Engineer unit to help build the installation at the newly established American air base in Monrovia. Report of the International Commission of Inquiry into the Existence of Slavery and Forced Labor in the Republic of Liberia, September 8, 1930, U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, D.C., 1931; Raymond L. Buell, “The Liberian Paradox,” The Virginia Quarterly Review 7 (Spring 1931): 161–177. Fletcher, The Black Soldier and Officer in the United States Army, 92; Duignan and Gann, The United States and Africa, 195–197; Akingbade, “The Pacification of the Liberian Hinterland,” 282; Harlan, Louis R, “Booker T. Washington and the White Man’s Burden,” The American Historical Review 71, No. 2 (January 1966): 453. Charles Young to Ada Young, March 8, 1920, Charles Young Papers, NAAMCC; D. Elwood Dunn, Amos J. Beyan, and Carl P. Burrows, Historical Dictionary of Liberia (Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, 2001), 151–152.

149

This page intentionally left blank

13 “ONLY AMERICA LEFT HER NEGRO TROOPS BEHIND” The African American Military Experience in the First World War John H. Morrow, Jr. The First World War began as a global war fought by empires for empire. The European powers immediately deployed their colonial soldiers of color in combat against other Europeans. In August 1914, the U.S. Army proved to be the only American armed force that might assign African Americans to combat. The Navy had relegated black men to the mess, as stewards, and the Marine Corps had remained all-white by policy since 1798. How would the American Expeditionary Forces deploy their 380,000 black soldiers in 1917–1918? General Tasker H. Bliss, assistant to the Army Chief of Staff and later wartime Chief of Staff in Washington, believed that “negroes seem to take naturally to military service” and that the Army could easily recruit plenty of black men to the colors. In June 1917, the War Department opened a training school for African American officers at Fort Des Moines, Iowa, to train a thousand educated civilians and two hundred fifty Regular Army noncommissioned officers to become commissioned officers. As of the beginning of August 1917, Bliss planned to train sixteen regiments of black infantry, but he also realized that white Southerners might recoil at the prospect of having their black populations “trained to arms.”1 Bliss’s colleagues in the War Department, however, did not share his opinion of the mental capabilities of black men, so they instead planned to employ them as labor troops. Furthermore, rabid racist Sen. James K. Vardaman of Mississippi opposed both American entry into the war and the use of African Americans in combat. By training Negro soldiers to defend the nation, Vardaman feared, “it is but a short step to the conclusion that his political rights must be respected, even though it is necessary for him to give his life in defense of those rights, and you at once create a problem far-reaching and momentous in character.”2 The Mississippian correctly anticipated the danger that black combat service posed to the systemic racial segregation enthralling American society. Black citizens agreed that if they shed their blood in defense of the nation, then they merited equal rights under the law. The Army subsequently assigned the great majority of black soldiers to the Services of Supply (S.O.S.) in France, where they would serve in engineer and pioneer infantry units, and to stevedore units in the United States and in France. The stevedore regiments were responsible for loading and unloading ships on both sides of the Atlantic and also spent time in France building port facilities at St. Nazaire, Brest, and Bordeaux to facilitate the unloading of supplies.

151

John H. Morrow, Jr.

While some S.O.S. units received the label “Colored Engineer Battalions” and others “Colored Pioneer Infantry Regiments,” both performed the same duties, such as bridging and road construction and repair. The Army equipped engineers with trucks, while the pioneers had muledrawn wagons. Pioneers served as infantrymen and as quasi-engineers as they worked on roads, railroads, fortification construction and repairs, general construction, and salvage work. One pioneer lamented, “We endured all hardships of the front but missed the one thing we wanted most—some real whacks at the enemy.”3 The non-commissioned officers of the pioneer units were often black and bore arms, while engineers rarely rose above the rank of corporal and were unarmed, even though some of them worked close to the lines.4 Many of these units arrived in France during the summer of 1918 and returned to the United States during the summer of 1919. The various stevedore, pioneer, and engineer units rank as unsung “enablers” of the United States’ military effort, for they enabled the combat units of the American Expeditionary Forces (AEF) to focus on their duties with the assurance of the support of the rear. On August 23, 1917, an estimated one hundred soldiers of the 3rd Battalion of the 24th Infantry Regiment (colored) stationed in Houston, Texas, who had grown tired of white policemen’s and citizens’ abusive treatment, mutinied, an action that led to the killing or wounding of nearly thirty people at the cost of four of their own. After the Houston Riot, the Army withdrew the battalion, executed thirteen men immediately and ultimately executed six more in 1918, while Houston white mobs went on a rampage against black civilians causing sixteen white and twenty-three black fatalities. Racists used the mutiny to heighten white fears of African American soldiers, and military leaders, indifferent to the racist treatment of these men, now worried about the loyalty of black Americans, who objected to the peremptory hangings of their soldiers. Despite pressure from the NAACP to arm black soldiers, the War Department reduced the number of African American combat soldiers it planned to organize from sixteen regiments to one division of four regiments which would receive minimal training before overseas deployment.5 The Army believed that a black division required the leadership of white officers. Furthermore, white soldiers and officers in general, and Southerners in particular, refused to take commands from a black superior. President Woodrow Wilson allowed the transfer of a southern white lieutenant in the 10th Cavalry (colored) to a white regiment after the latter complained about taking orders from a black superior, Lt. Col. Charles Young. Secretary of War Newton Baker then retired the eminently qualified Young, the most logical commander of a black division, for “medical reasons.” Race trumped rank in the World War I U.S. Army, as it would for another three decades. Senior white officers would lead the 92nd Division (colored) organized in November 1917, and black officers from the Des Moines Officer Training School (OTS) would fill only its captaincies and lieutenancies. The Army also cobbled together four mobilized regiments—the 15th New York National Guard (colored), the 8th Illinois National Guard (colored), the 1st Provisional South Carolina Draftees (colored), and the combined smaller black Guard units from the District of Columbia, Maryland, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Ohio, and Tennessee—and redesignated them the 369th, 370th, 371st, and 372nd respectively, of a 93rd Provisional Division (colored) that would never exist except on paper. Ironically, these four regiments would see combat in France in the French Army before the 92nd ever arrived in Europe. Both the New York National Guard (NYNG) 6th Division and the 42nd Division, the so-called “Rainbow Division,” refused to admit the 15th NYNG, the latter on the grounds that “black is not a color of the rainbow.”6 Unable to train in the United States, the 15th arrived in Brest, France, on New Year’s Day, 1918. Its commander, Col. William Hayward, who believed in the capability of African American soldiers, expected his regiment would train for the front, but 152

“America Left Her Negro Troops Behind”

he was unaware that the War Department orders of November 1917 forming the four regiments into the 93rd Provisional Division planned for the AEF to use them as “infantry pioneers.” Fortunately for the beleaguered outfit, the French Army desperately needed men, and Gen. Philippe Pétain, French commander on the Western Front, requested that Pershing release all four black regiments of the 93rd to serve in the French military. Pershing, who was unwilling to release white soldiers as the AEF built its strength, assented, and on January 11, 1918, Pétain gratefully accepted the black regiments as infantry and agreed to supply them with French rifles and equipment.7 The 15th learned of its new designation, the 369th, only when it arrived in the French Army in March. As numbers in the three hundreds signified draftee regiments, the volunteers continued to refer to themselves as the 15th and derived their favorite nickname, “the Rattlers,” from the regimental insignia of the Rattlesnake, “Don’t tread on me,” on their sleeve.8 By mid-April the 369th had completed its training so impressively that it was serving in the front lines, and its predominantly white officer corps, which included scions of leading New York families, and French and American observers as well, expected it to become an elite fighting unit. As Capt. Hamilton “Ham” Fish, Harvard All-American lineman and future New York congressman, wrote to his father: “I am a great believer in the fighting quality of the educated American Negro, provided he is well led. If the regiment does not make a splendid record, it will be the fault of the officers.”9 The 369th would serve in the French 16th and later the 161st Divisions. The 369th measured up to such expectations, and in the early morning of May 15, two of its privates, Henry Johnson and Neadom Roberts, repulsed a German patrol of some twenty to twenty-four men in violent hand-to-hand combat, an encounter for which the French decorated both men with the Croix de Guerre with Palm, and Gen. Pershing in an “Official Communiqué” to the home front cited both men by name for their “notable instance of bravery and devotion.” As most Americans, white and black, did not know that a black unit was even in combat, the news exploded in the Army and the stateside press.10 The 369th fought so well that French War Minister André Tardieu wanted his generals to ask Pershing to give all black units, including the 92nd Division, to the French Army.11 The 8th Illinois, destined to become the 370th Regiment, consisted entirely of black soldiers from colonel to privates. Dating from the 1890s, the unit had served in Cuba in the Spanish-American War and on the Mexican border in 1916. The First Provisional Infantry Regiment (colored) comprised black draftees from South Carolina with an all-white officer corps and Regular Army commander and became the 371st after narrowly avoiding relegation to labor duties. The 372nd Regiment, a composite of battalion and company sized black guard units, confronted some white officers who refused to treat their black peers as equals and a white commander who refused to deal with the matter. All three regiments shipped out to France in April 1918, to join the 369th in the French Army. By summer, the 371st and the 372nd Regiments were completing their training in the front lines, and they became two of the three permanent regiments of the French 157th Division. The 370th Regiment, however, shifted among various French divisions and consequently experienced delays in training and the replacement of its black commander and some of its battalion commanders with white officers. Ultimately, the regiment joined the French 59th Division in Gen. Charles Mangin’s 10th Army in August, where it remained to the end of the war. By August, the AEF was imposing all-white commissioned officer cadres on the 369th and 372nd regiments despite warnings of the danger of lowering the morale of the black soldiers, and, in the same month, AEF HQ asked the French to return the four regiments for retraining as labor troops. Col. Louis Linard, chief of the French Military Mission at AEF HQ, attempted in vain to forestall this transfer by advising the French Army to treat African Americans as whites did in the United States. His memorandum of August 7, “On the Subject of Black American 153

John H. Morrow, Jr.

Troops,” clearly demonstrates the influence of the AEF high command. Linard instructed the French not to treat black officers as equals and to prevent any “public intimacy of white women with the Blacks.” The French penchant for treating blacks as equals threatened to undermine the “inexorable” segregation in the United States, where white Americans considered “the colored man . . . an inferior being.” The French General Staff retracted the embarrassing memorandum twelve days later, and on August 26 Allied Commander-in-Chief Gen. Ferdinand Foch informed Pershing that the loss of the four regiments would cause the deletion of two French infantry divisions—troublesome consequences compared to the “slight advantage” the AEF would gain from using the black soldiers as labor troops. The black regiments would remain with the French Army through the end of the war until December 1918.12 By late September the 371st Regiment had been on the lines in the Meuse-Argonne for nearly four months, in that time conducting small patrols and two major raids into the German lines. In its sister Regiment, the 372nd, the Regular Army commander had removed all the black commissioned officers in the regiment except one in August and September, appalling the French officers at this harsh and cruel treatment that threatened the regiment’s morale as it prepared to face battle.13 All the regiments of the 93rd fought well in the climactic offensives ending the war from late September through the armistice on November 11. Three regiments—the 369th, 371st, and 372nd, the first in the 161st Division and the latter two in the 157th Division—moved to the Champagne Front in the 9th Corps in Gen. Henri Gouraud’s 4th Army. The French assigned the task of breaking through the lines in an attack starting on September 26 to the 161st, while the 157th remained in reserve to exploit the breakthrough. In a four-day offensive at the end of September, the 369th seized and held its objective despite suffering such severe casualties that its white officers, such as Capt. Lewis Shaw, observed: “Our colored boys have made a lasting name for themselves. They fought and won magnificently. My company kept going under its noncoms even after all officers were gone.”14 The 369th would spend 191 continuous days in the trench lines, longer than any other American unit, and lost not a single prisoner nor a foot of ground to German soldiers, a record unmatched by any comparable unit in the AEF. All three regiments served as shock troops in the successful offensive against a well-prepared and determined enemy, and the French Army, and later the American Army, decorated officers and men in all three for their achievements. As Frank Roberts observes, the usual time a regiment in the AEF could endure such a battle before relief was three days; these three regiments were in action up to nine days.15 Afterward, the divisions would move to the Vosges Front, where they saw less action, and ultimately to positions along the Rhine River at the end of the war. Meanwhile, the 370th Regiment participated in the 59th Division’s attacks in the Soissons sector, which would last from September 15 to the armistice on November 11. First the regiment attacked toward the Oise-Aisne Canal and fought hard against determined German resistance along the Canal until the relief of the division on the night of October 13/14. The division then re-entered the line on October 30 northeast of Laon along the Serre River where it fought until the armistice. Although both French and American commanders found fault with the training of many of the black officers, their training had suffered because the French had neglected it when the regiment had first arrived, all complimented the men on their courage and high morale as black officers had demonstrated their ability in leading their soldiers on successful raids and even seizing a strongly fortified village after the French assault unit assigned to take it had retreated.16 The 92nd Division never received the training it needed, either in the United States or in France. Instead, its commander, Gen. C.C. Ballou, and later Commander in Chief Pershing, threatened it with disbandment if it engaged in racial conflict or rape. In contrast, the authorities deemed the white 167th Alabama Regiment, which caused disruption and violence with 154

“America Left Her Negro Troops Behind”

both white and black regiments alike in its various camps, merely “rambunctious.”17 The War Department’s stipulation that African Americans should always constitute a minority in any camp effectively scattered the division from Kansas to Long Island. It received outmoded training without weapons. It arrived in France over a period of a month, from mid-June to mid-July in 1918 with no transport or armaments; indeed, its artillery brigade finally joined the division later in October.18 Unfortunately for the division, in its first battle in the Argonne, at the village of Binarville, the 2nd and 3rd Battalions of the 368th Regiment collapsed on September 28, because of the incompetence of all officers, in particular the white commanders. The 1st Battalion filled the gap and seized the village, along with the French.19 The white division commanders emphasized the failures of the two battalions, blamed them solely on their black underlings, and insisted on extrapolating these initial failures to the rest of the division, regardless of its actual later performance. The AEF’s 2nd Army, under the command of Alabamian Gen. Robert Lee Bullard, was far smaller and less accomplished than the American 1st Army and consequently spent the last month of the war in the Marbache sector on both sides of the Moselle River. In the Army’s offensive that began on November 10, the 92nd, including its black officers, performed better than neighboring white divisions. In particular, the 1st Battalion of the 365th Regiment, led by a gifted white officer who respected and had the respect of his black officers and men, seized the fortified Bois Fréhaut.20 Yet none of this made any difference in the reputation of the 92nd, because white senior officers believed a priori that black men were mentally inferior and thus incapable of leading or fighting.21 On December 6, 1918, Col. Allen J. Greer, wartime Chief of Staff of the 92nd Division, wrote Tennessee Sen. Kenneth D. McKellar about the inclusion of Negro officers and troops in the peacetime Regular Army, from the “vitally” important perspectives of the “military” and of a “Southerner.” Claiming that his statements were “based on facts which I know fully,” he alleged that all black company officers were incompetent and that white officers should replace them. Then, the one regiment in line [the 368th] at the start of the Argonne offensive on September 26th “failed in all its missions, laid down and sneaked to the rear . . .” against minor opposition. One of the battalion commanders labeled the men “rank cowards.” Afterward they had only minor engagements against an enemy on the defensive. Greer, a Tennessean, after claiming numerous cases of rape, accidental shootings, and murders, concluded that the men “could do anything but fight. They have in fact been dangerous to no one except themselves and women.” He condemned “colored” officers for exercising no control over their men and asserted that most of them “are just plain liars in addition.” Greer insisted that should the American military leadership ever consider including Negro officers and troops in the peacetime Regular Army, it should first summon the field officers of the 92nd Division to testify.22 Gen. Robert Lee Bullard, commander of the AEF 2nd Army, which included the 92nd Division, denigrated both the division and its commanding general, C.C. Ballou. His diary excerpts starting November 1, 1918, asserted that in the Meuse Argonne a part of the Division had “run away twice” in front of the enemy. He considered this the fault of the “Negroes” and of its general. He praised the Division’s complement of higher officers and general staff as “exceptionally good,” and “not one” of those higher officers “believed that the 92d division would ever be worth anything as soldiers.” The Division was a “failure” and the men, “hopelessly inferior” soldiers. Bullard further claimed that the “very few French people” in the Division’s region “were not happy to have Negroes among them” because “the Negro is a more sensual man than the white man and at the same time he is far more offensive to white women than a white man is.” As the division’s men confronted charges of fifteen cases of alleged rape, Bullard recommended that the unit return home first of all American units after the Armistice. He concluded that his 155

John H. Morrow, Jr.

memories of the 92d were “a nightmare,” and that “if you need combat soldiers, . . . don’t put your time upon Negroes.”23 On May 6, 1919, Maj. Walter Loving, black agent of the Military Intelligence Branch, vented his outrage at the AEF’s treatment of African American infantrymen, particularly the 92nd Division. Loving damned the quality of the Division’s white officers and their pronouncements, policies, and actions. He particularly condemned the assignment of Col. Allen J. Greer as chief of staff as a “conspicuous example of an unqualified man being placed in an important position.” Greer’s duty, as Loving cogently explained, should have been “to work zealously for the efficiency, morale, and reputation of the division.” Instead, the colonel’s deeds “On many occasions had the effect of undermining the morale of his own officers and men.” Loving demanded a court-martial of Greer and an investigation of the 92nd Division’s performance because, if it “was not a success,” then “the fault rests with the division commander and his field officers and not with his men.”24 He concluded by citing the performance of black soldiers in the prewar army as evidence, and his assessment of fault recalls Capt. Hamilton Fish’s judgment before the 369th entered combat—if the Regiment did not perform well, it would be entirely the fault of the officers. The blatantly false and exaggerated tales and allegations of white officers of the 92nd that, for example, drunken black soldiers had terrorized villagers, murdering and attempting rape at Chateau-Thierry, seemed focused solely on the hasty removal of the men from France. Bullard alleged fifteen cases of rape, others as many as twenty-six, yet the courts-martial found only one soldier of a Division of twenty-eight thousand men actually guilty of the crime.25 Maj. Walter Loving, as did his white counterparts, wanted black soldiers out of France because of the realistic fear that competition between black and white soldiers for French women might well lead to a “race war” in France, which would become catastrophic should French soldiers side with African American troops on the matter. Loving’s concerns reflected the true conditions in France, and Linard’s memorandum of August 1918 contradicted Bullard’s claim that the French were not happy to have Negroes among them and that French women found their advances offensive. The truth was exactly the opposite, and the warm reception that African Americans had experienced in France threatened prevailing racial inequities at home. Greer’s letter makes transparent the real practical reason for discrediting the service of black soldiers—to ensure that the peacetime Regular Army remained as white as possible, other than the four black regiments which had remained in the United States and the Philippines during the war. Southern states had no intention of extending civil rights to African Americans and were insisting that the Army prevent black soldiers from returning home in uniform or in groups and transform them back into submissive civilians.26 Consequently, the Army sent Robert Russa Moton of Tuskegee Institute to France to lecture returning black soldiers on the “modest and unassuming” attitudes necessary to placate white Americans. Such speeches further angered these men, whom white MPs assaulted to remind them of “their place” in American society.27 As the recent books of historians Chad L. Williams and Robert H. Ferrell clearly demonstrate, the black officers and men of the 92nd Division had ample reason to return home angry at their treatment by their commanding officers and to attempt to set the record straight. The divisions’ commanders had done little to prepare the division for combat; relentlessly attacked their manhood, honor, courage, and intelligence; and chose to condemn their entire black division based on the inadequate performance of two battalions on one day and to deny the achievements of the Division’s units and the numerous decorations individual black soldiers earned. They were determined to discredit their own division based on the race of its soldiers, although its performance in combat exceeded that of some white divisions.

156

“America Left Her Negro Troops Behind”

At the other end of the spectrum of their experience, the men of the 369th enjoyed the firm support of their officers, as Hayward and his white subordinates believed in the quality of the black volunteers and their potential to become an elite fighting unit. The 369th’s white commanders expected much of their men, and they measured up to their expectations. Furthermore, the 369th was fortunate to serve in French divisions whose commanders, echoing the expectations of the French high command, valued such fine troops and trained, led, and honored them accordingly. The officers and men, black and white, of the Regiment could proudly recall their decorated wartime service in the French Army and did not return to the United States with the rage that so many of the black officers of the 92nd Division in particular felt. Several men who served in the 92nd, particularly educated young officers such as Osceola E. McKaine, became “radicalized” and formed a “League for Democracy.” Many black soldiers returned to their homes to face race riots from Washington, D.C., to Tulsa, OK, as white Americans violently made it clear to them that the war had changed nothing. In the South, Vardaman encouraged white men to organize and resort to vigilanteeism toward “suspicious characters— these military French women-ruined Negro soldiers,” a summons to action that precipitated the lynching of at least nineteen black soldiers in uniform.28 In Washington, French Military Attaché Gen. Louis Collardet contrasted the treatment of black soldiers in France to that in the United States in his report to the French government of April 8, 1919. The soldiers, returning from France where social equality had eliminated nearly all barriers, resented the difference in treatment they received in the United States. Collardet particularly condemned white Americans’ insistence that black soldiers return to the South individually and not in uniform. In France, all soldiers returned home in uniform, proud of their service to their country. The U.S. Army, he believed, would deprive black soldiers alone of the proud return home in uniform that all veterans deserved because they would surely encounter hostility from southern whites. He was not surprised that black people sought to organize and defend themselves. Collardet found it particularly egregious that Robert Russa Moton, the principal of Tuskegee, had felt obliged to defend African American soldiers against charges of “failure,” as the black regiments brigaded with the French had certainly proved their value. He further opined that the Negro American received too little credit for his part in making the supply service a success. Concerning the total record of the Negro as a soldier in France, he concluded that there was no need for defense or anything other than “praise.”29 The early return of the 92nd and 93rd Divisions from France in January and February 1919 further prevented any African American soldiers from marching in the great Entente victory parade of July 14, 1919. In the words of Charles H. Williams, whose following lament about the 93rd Division applied equally to the 92nd: [I]n the greatest military demonstration in the history of the world, the American Negro was not there. Other nations had all the races that fought under their flags in line. Belgium had her black colonial troops; England had Indians and Africans with her own sons and her soldiers from the colonies; and France had her Senegalese, Moroccans, Algerians, Soudanese, and Madagascans: every race that came to her defense was in her victorious army on that memorable day. Only America left her Negro troops behind. . . . He alone in the day of glory was the Disowned, the Disinherited.30 Actually, the AEF did leave certain black soldiers behind: the labor battalions of the Service of Supply to complete the thankless, gruesome, and desensitizing task of clearing battlefields, digging

157

John H. Morrow, Jr.

up the bodies of the American dead and reburying them in the war memorial cemeteries of rural France. The successful campaign white Southern senior officers orchestrated against black officers and soldiers ensured that the armed forces of the United States remained as segregated at the beginning of the Second World War as they had been at the end of the First. In fact, some of the significant figures of the first war, who would play leading roles in the second, bore conceptions formed in 1918 throughout the Second World War. George C. Marshall, a key planner of training and operations as a colonel in the AEF, would become Chief of Staff of the U.S. Army during the Second World War. Henry Stimson, who had been Secretary of War before World War I in 1911–13 and then Secretary of State from 1929 to 1933, returned to the position of Secretary of War during the Second World War, from 1940 to 1945. Stimson, who remained committed to segregated armed forces, “revealed in his diary that Marshall could be quite derogatory about black troops, noting in his diary his agreement with the Chief of Staff ’s assessment of the performance of the 92nd Division in the First World War. ‘As Marshall remarked, the only place they could be counted on to stand would be in Iceland in summertime where there was daylight for twenty-four hours.’”31 It should consequently come as no surprise that when Marshall assigned fellow Virginia Military Institute (VMI) graduate Gen. Edward M. Almond to command the 92nd in Italy in World War II, Almond denigrated the abilities and efforts of his African American soldiers and blamed any perceived shortcomings or failures on them, just as his southern predecessors had a quarter century before him. African American soldiers, nevertheless, had proven to themselves that they were as capable as any at soldiering, and among them, several would figure in the Harlem Renaissance and the rise of the “New Negro” and further, to initiate what historian Adriane Lentz-Smith demonstrates became the long Civil Rights Movement of the twentieth century.32 The war had proven to be transformative for them but not for white Americans.

Notes 1 Bernard C. Nalty, Strength for the Fight: A History of Black Americans in the Military (New York: The Free Press, 1986), 108. 2 Chad Williams, Torchbearers of Democracy: African American Soldiers in the World War I Era (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2010), 31–32. 3 Cited in Robert J. Dalessandro and Gerald Torrence, Willing Patriots: Men of Color in the First World War (Altglen, PA: Schiffer Military History, 2009), 56. 4 Ibid., 17. 5 Nalty, Strength, 101–106, 109. 6 Arthur W. Little, From Harlem to the Rhine: The Story of New York’s Colored Volunteers (New York: Covici Friede, 1936), 112. 7 Pétain, GQG N&NE, no. 11.318, January 11, 1918; Pétain, report on conversation with Pershing, January 13, 1918, Dossier 2, 6N141, Service Historique de l’Armée de Terre, Vincennes, France (SHAT). CIC AEF to Chief, French Military Mission, January 15, 1918; addendum to prior message, January 16, 1918, SHAT. GQG Memorandum, May 27, 1918, Doc. 113, 17N76, SHAT. 8 Little, From Harlem, 143–144, 146. 9 Fish to his father, April 8, 1918, Fish papers, Box 40, Folder 10, New York State Manuscript Collection, Albany, NY. Earlier reports in Chef de Battailon Bonnolte, “Rapport sur Entrainement de 369è Regiment,” April 16, 1918, 17N76, SHAT. 10 Jeffrey T. Sammons and John H. Morrow, Jr., Harlem’s Rattlers and the Great War: The Undaunted 369th Regiment and the African American Quest for Equality (Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas, 2014), 265–295. 11 Présidence du Conseil André Tardieu no. 11028 M.O. to Ministère de la Guerre, Doc. 124, 17N76, SHAT. 12 Memorandum for Chief of Staff, First Section General Staff, from Col. James Logan, Jr., AC of S, G-1, RG 120, Entry 11440-A.50, National Archives and Records Administration, College Park, MD

158

“America Left Her Negro Troops Behind”

13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22

23

24

25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32

(NARA). Linard memorandum, translation of document cited in Gilles Bernard and Pierre Besnard, “Les Combattants Noirs Américains de la Première Guerre Mondiale, 1917–1918,” Militaria 118 (Mai 1995): 13. H.B. Fiske, Brig. Gen., G.S. “Memorandum for the Chief of Staff. Subject: Regiments of the 93rd Division,” August 10, 1918, GA, GHQ AEF, File 8.55, RG 120, NARA. CinC AEF (McAndrew), No. 11440-A 117 to French Mission, August 16, 1918, Doc. 163, 17N76, SHAT. Foch, No. 3315 to Pershing, 193, File 590, RG 120, NARA. Frank E. Roberts, The American Foreign Legion: Black Soldiers of the 93d in World War I (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2004), 97. L.E. Shaw to Mrs. C.H. Shaw, November 29, 1918, Shaw Papers, Manuscript Division, New York Historical Society, New York, NY. Roberts, The American Foreign Legion, 150. Ibid., 152–172. Nimrod T. Frazier, Send the Alabamians (Tuscaloosa, AL: The University of Alabama Press, 2014), passim. Robert H. Ferrell, Unjustly Dishonored: An African American Division in World War I (Columbia, MO: University of Missouri Press, 2009), 2, 3, 7, 9–13. Ibid., 17–41. Ibid., 70–88. Ibid., 89–106. Greer, Allen J., Letter from Allen J. Greer to Senator Kenneth D. McKellar, December 6, 1918, W.E.B. Du Bois Papers, (MS 312), Special Collections and University Archives, University of Massachusetts, Amherst Libraries. Also in RG 407, Box 704, 322.97, NARA. “Negro Division A Nightmare, Says Bullard,” Chicago Daily Tribune, June 9, 1925, 4; See also Bullard’s memoirs, Robert Lee Bullard, Personalities and Reminiscences of the Great War (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, Page, 1925), which was excerpted in the Chicago Daily Tribune of June 9, 1925. Maj. Walter H. Loving to Director of Military Intelligence, “Final Report on Negro Subversion,” August 6, 1919, Loving Papers, 113.1, Series D, M.I., Moorland-Spingarn Research Collection, Howard University, Washington, D.C. Ferrell, Unjustly Dishonored, 98. Mark Ellis, Race, War, and Surveillance: African Americans and the United States Government During the World War (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2001), 207–208. Little, From Harlem, 351–53; L.E. Shaw to Mrs. C.H. Shaw, January 27, 1919, Shaw Papers, Manuscript Division, New York Historical Society, New York, NY. Vardaman’s Weekly, May 15, 1919; Vincent Mikkelsen, “Coming from Battle to Face War: The Lynching of Black Soldiers in the World War I Era” (dissertation. Florida State University, 2007), 89–90. Gen. Collardet no. 233, April 8, 1918, 7N1717; Military Attaché no. 62r, December 5, 1918, Collardet note, April 9, 1919, 7N1717; Gen. Collardet no. 343R, June 6, 1919, 7N1717; SHAT. Cited in Roberts, American Foreign Legion, 201. Graham A. Smith, When Jim Crow Met John Bull: Black American Soldiers in World War II Britain (London: Tauris, 1987), 26. Adriane Lentz-Smith, Freedom Struggles: African Americans and World War I (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2009), passim.

159

This page intentionally left blank

14 OF CODES AND CULTURE The Navajo Experience in World War II1 Robert S. McPherson

The history of Native American relations with the military offers a study in conflict, betrayal, subjugation, and defeat, with only a few isolated examples of friendship, understanding, and cooperation shining through the black mist. From the colonial era to the final wars in the nineteenth century, Native Americans fought valiantly to hold their land, maintain their culture, and retain autonomy, but seldom succeeded. Even when allied with the winning side—as scouts, combatants, auxiliaries, or as neutral observers—the ultimate result was loss. Whites often disparaged Native American culture, believing that the Indians’ traditional teachings and language lacked value. Not until the end of the 1800s with the advent of anthropology was much serious thought given to the culture or the people, with the exception of a few lone figures ahead of their time, who looked beyond contemporary views to understand the power of what was being destroyed or confined to reservations. What possible good could come from these benighted Indian souls, other than their ability on the war trail? Considering what lay in the future, it is ironic that the government assigned the Navajo (Diné) in 1868 to what seemed like an undesirable piece of desert property, enrolled them in boarding schools to erase any trace of language and culture, and eventually reduced them from being self-sufficient pastoralists to dependence on subsidies and off-reservation wage labor. Yet as time progressed, just those things that the dominant society had worked so hard to remove went full circle and became a closely guarded top secret project credited with inestimable value. Unlike most tribes in the United States, the Navajo were able to keep much of their culture and language intact. Their twenty-seven thousand square mile reservation in New Mexico, Arizona, and southeastern Utah provided isolation and a continuation of a pastoral lifestyle that spread them over the landscape. Not until the livestock reduction of the 1930s did they have to seriously face the world of off reservation life and the wage economy. Consequently, many of those Navajo servicemen who fought during World War II came from a highly traditional lifestyle, steeped in the teachings that had preserved them for centuries in a desert climate with often hostile neighbors. The preparation for and execution of war were embedded in the male side of Navajo culture. Since the declassification of the Navajo story in 1968, several historians have written about their experience in the Pacific Theater of World War II.2 This chapter concentrates on cultural aspects that made that experience both unique and relevant. Before doing so, it is helpful to examine other examples where American Indians used their native language to communicate tactical 161

Robert S. McPherson

information in modern warfare. The first instance occurred in World War I with the Choctaw from Oklahoma. The practice evolved by chance when an officer heard some Choctaw soldiers speaking their language and decided to put it to use. Eventually elements of the 142nd and 143rd Infantry Regiments of the 36th Infantry Division had nineteen such communicators placed in several field company headquarters, sending and receiving radio messages that the Germans could not decipher.3 They even developed their own code for military words not found in their vocabulary so that a platoon of men became “thong,” the first battalion was “one grain of corn,” a company was a “bow,” and a patrol “many scouts.”4 Other Native American groups including the Cherokee, Cheyenne, Comanche, Osage, and Yankton Sioux, although not as large as the Choctaw, also used their language effectively during the Meuse-Argonne offensive in October and November of 1918, just prior to the armistice. During World War II, a similar practice occurred. While the Navajo program was by far the largest—compare its total number of an estimated four hundred twenty men to the next two closest groups of the Comanche and the Chippewa-Oneida each with seventeen communicators— and one can see how actively the Marine Corps recruited for its program.5 Historian William C. Meadows has studied all twenty-one tribes and their service as code talkers and classified them according to the type of message encoding they used. The first, Type I, used a code plus a tribal language such as Comanche, Chippewa-Oneida, Meskwaki, Hopi, and Navajo. Indeed, the military recruited the first three tribes before the Navajo program started, while the Hopi began in 1943.6 The second, Type II, depended upon normal use of the language, which for the enemy was confusing enough. Tribes belonging to this category were various bands of Sioux (Lakota), Cree, Kaw, and Choctaw. Criteria for the selection of a tribal language included: “whether or not their language had been recorded; the number of males of appropriate age to enlist who were both fluent in their native language and English; overall willingness of tribal men to serve in the U.S. military; and the number of these individuals who could read and write English.”7 The Comanche devised a code with two hundred fifty special words and terms, while the Navajo code eventually expanded by the end of the war to over six hundred. Each of these tribes had its qualities, personality, and individual history with the United States government. For the Navajo, patriotism—fighting for their country, yes, but more specifically for their homeland bounded by the four sacred mountains—was a key trait that caused many to either enlist during World War II or become involved in war-related work. Defense contractors and government officials employed over eight hundred Navajo workers at the Fort Wingate Ordinance Depot with another five hundred working at the Navajo Ordnance Depot at Bellemont, both in Arizona. Others traveled to defense industries on the West Coast; many more worked as migrant laborers throughout the Southwest and neighboring regions. Another 3,600 chose to wear the uniform of the Army, Navy, Marine Corps, or Women’s Army Corps to help boost the military. In 1945, the Indian Service estimated that as many as ten thousand Navajos were involved in war work in some capacity.8 Employment plus patriotism fit well into the Navajo character. These two qualities encouraged many to move off the reservation and into the white man’s world for an extended period, modifying their traditional cultural views. But it was the Anglo son of a non-denominational Christian missionary couple, Philip Johnston, who gave birth to the idea of recruiting Navajos as code talkers. He has provided elsewhere a good explanation in a somewhat dramatic fashion about how at the age of four his family moved to the Navajo reservation in 1896 where he remained for approximately twelve years before attending a number of schools then moving to California in 1915.9 Many of his playmates while growing up were Navajo, providing him with an excellent fluency in the language and personal experience within the culture. A brief stint in the military during World War I and a career as a civil engineer in Los Angeles kept Johnston far from the reservation, but when the Japanese 162

Of Codes and Culture

bombed Pearl Harbor and dark days descended upon the United States, he remembered his friends. It happened one day when he read about an armored unit in Louisiana using Native American soldiers to communicate during field exercises. The next day Johnston was on his way to Camp Elliott, seven miles north of San Diego, to visit Marine signal officer Colonel James E. Jones and present an idea. Following a number of convincing demonstrations that showed how accurately and quickly Navajo-speakers could transmit messages, Marine skeptics-turned-believers decided to enlist a group of Navajos to train in communications. Dispatched to the Navajo reservation, recruiters obtained the first group—often referred to today as the “Twenty-nine”—to serve as radio operators and devise a code. Headquartered initially in Camp Elliott and later thirty miles north at Camp Pendleton, California, this top secret project was under stringent orders never to divulge its activities. As the Marines cast a wider net for recruitment of Navajos both on and off the reservation, they insisted the inductees have completed a minimum of nine years of formal education. In reality, they accepted others with less, some having only completed the seventh grade. Others were high school graduates, and one held a college degree. The first Navajo Marines to develop the code came directly from boot camp and selected their own leaders to initiate the process. The orders given for developing this complex code were simple: Lock the “Twenty-nine” in a secure building each day until they finished the project. They were to work to create an alphabet using short terms for ease of transmission, choose words that were equivalent to English, then record and memorize what they devised. In a month’s time, these men developed the first working code.10 The twenty-six letters of the phonetic alphabet, “alpha, bravo, charlie,” transformed into Wol-la-chee (Navajo for ant), Shush (actually shash for bear) and Moasi (cat). For frequently used letters such as vowels, they introduced two or more additional terms in order to break any repetitious pattern. Other Navajo words substituted for the English term because of an object’s qualities. A fighter plane became a humming bird, a submarine an iron fish, a machine gun— rapid fire gun, a canvas litter or stretcher—scatter, and rocket—sand boil. The initial code, according to Johnston, began with two hundred eleven words which doubled by the end of his enlistment.11 In 1945, a year after the Marines released Johnston from the service, the count had risen to over six hundred. Johnston, who volunteered at the age of fifty to enter into the Corps, received the rank of staff sergeant and the assignment of working with the Navajos in the program. He reported that, “Within two years, some 300 Navajos qualified as ‘communicators.’ The percentage of failure was fantastically low—about five out of each hundred. And only one of that multitude ‘went over the hill.’”12 To ensure correctness of translation with future classes, accomplished graduates remained behind as instructors. Thus, at the conclusion of an eight-week advanced training cycle, at first two and later as many as five Marines from that class taught new students before eventually rotating out to serve in the Pacific. Both in field training exercises and combat, Navajo code talkers proved highly effective. The Japanese were never able to break the code even when they had a captive Navajo who spoke the language but did not know the code. Verbal transmission time was almost instantaneous, highly accurate, and available at different echelons of command—from a Marine rifle company to a division. At each level there was glowing praise similar to that given in a report entitled “The Use of Navajo Indians for Radio Transmission Security Purposes” dated April 15, 1944.13 By this time approximately two hundred fifty Navajos had been trained and a good number of those had seen combat. While “Marine officers state that the gibberish of the Indians” was unintelligible, they were confident that the code was effective and difficult to compromise. Some of the Navajos were serving as radio operators, others as messengers, who when “on their own in the jungle or wooded area, are much more hardy and self-supporting than the normal white man. . . . [and] have a knack for agile escape and adequate self-protection.” Their ability to memorize and retain 163

Robert S. McPherson

information was noteworthy, while “the ability of these Indians to receive and transmit under battle conditions and noises is good, if not better, than their English-speaking fellow soldiers.” This evaluation of Navajo code talkers remained consistent throughout the remainder of the war. These specialized Marines served from the initial offensive in the Pacific at Guadalcanal through the final desperate battle for Okinawa. A classic example of their effectiveness emerges during the fight for the island of Iwo Jima (1945), perhaps the largest single deployment of Navajo code talkers during the war. Major Howard M. Connor, signal officer for the Fifth Marine Division, stated at the end of the battle: “The entire operation was directed by Navajo code. Our corps command post was on a battleship from which orders went to the three division command posts on the beachhead, and on down to the lower echelons. I was signal officer of the Fifth Division. During the first forty-eight hours, while we were landing and consolidating our shore positions, I had six Navajo radio nets operating around the clock. In that period alone they sent and received over eight hundred messages without an error.”14 An aspect of the code talker experience lacking thorough investigation until recently is the role that culture played with many of these men. There was a wide range of acculturation that took place before these young warriors entered the service. Some came from devoutly Christian homes, lived in an urban setting, and attended boarding school or day school where teachers stressed speaking English while denigrating the Navajo language. Much of traditional teaching is embodied in Navajo mythology and ceremony that some of these people had little exposure to. While all were fluent Navajo speakers, there were also those who came from a more rural, traditional background. Returning to Navajo history, one must understand that war both on the ground and in the myths was an important part of a man’s experience. Raiding, fighting, and defending was a way of life against enemies from other Native American cultures—Utes, Comanche, Hopis, and other puebloan tribes—as well as the Spanish, Mexicans, and later Anglo Americans. Expeditions against them called for retaliation, often fueled by a slave trade that until the Civil War, was an accepted part of life in the Southwest. A Navajo never knew when a fight-or-flight situation might arise. The model for war-making and manhood came from the rich body of mythology for which the Navajo are famous. Particularly important was the story of two young men— Monster Slayer (Naayéé’ neizghání) and Born for Water (Tó bájísh chíní ), known as the Twins.15 They were born to supernatural parents, Changing Woman (Asdzą́ą́ n nádleehé) and Sun Bearer ( Jóhonaa’éí) at a time when the world was in its formative stage and inhabited with Navajo-eating monsters. The two boys, who had never met their father, were anxious to leave home, find him, and receive assistance in making the world safe for their people. Before their journey, they required strengthening and toughening. This task fell to some of the holy people who taught them, through rigorous training, what it would take to physically survive. Upon leaving their home, they also received protective amulets, prayers, and songs that guided them through spiritual dangers on a physical journey. As they traveled, evil monsters in different forms—Rocks that Crush, Slashing Reeds, Giant Cacti, and Boiling Sand Dunes—blocked their path and tried to kill them but without success. Spiritual power saved the Twins each time. Finally, they reached Sun Bearer’s home only to encounter more tests, this time to gain entrance into his dwelling and later to prove that they were his sons. Most important of all of their powers came from the help of the Holy Wind (Niłch’i), a sacred being who guides, warns, protects, and teaches, comparable to the functions of the Holy Ghost in Christian beliefs. The Twins passed 164

Of Codes and Culture

the tests; their father recognized them as his offspring and offered assistance. What did they want? The young men answered quickly—they needed weapons to destroy the monsters inhabiting the earth. At first reticent, Sun Bearer eventually gave them four types of arrows—lightning, sheet lightning, sunbeam, and rainbow—with instructions as to how to kill the evil they soon would face. The brothers returned to earth on a streak of lightning, ready to set to work. The Twins were successful. They killed a wide variety of creatures—Big God the Giant, Horned Monster, Kicking Monster, Tracking Bear Monster, and many others—using the prayers, objects, and weapons they had acquired on their journey. By the time they had rid the earth of these evil beings, they had become accomplished warriors, but also suffered from the ill effects of bloodshed, images of war, and spiritual trauma. Only after they disposed of their weapons and had a cleansing ceremony now called the Enemy Way (Anaa’jí or Anaa’jí Ndáá) did their swooning and illness from ghost sickness stop.16 Now with the carnage of war behind them, they could return to a life of peace. This story provides the pattern for a man’s role in life, especially for those entering combat. The time when it was most necessary was during the 1850s to mid-1860s, when the Navajo entered what was called the “Fearing Time” followed by a large-scale military campaign that forced half of the tribe to a reservation known as Fort Sumner or Bosque Redondo in New Mexico. Those taken captive or who surrendered, eventually numbering over eight thousand, remained there from 1864 to 1868. This era of fear, flight, and captivity etched itself indelibly into the tribal memory. No one ever felt secure, as marauding bands from enemy tribes, the American military, and civilian groups relentlessly hunted their enemies. Reared on stories from this era, the grandfathers and fathers of the men who served in World War II trained their children to be ever vigilant and prepared for fight or flight and protection of family members. Many young men raised in the 1920s and 30s recall being trained to run long distances early in the morning, having been constantly warned to stay awake and be ever vigilant. The warning “The enemy is always near” was a common saying as was “the whip is close,” both used to encourage self-discipline. Just as the Twins during the time of the myths, these youth faced the unending burden and responsibility of training and excelling as warriors. Rolling naked-but-for breechcloth in the snow, chopping a hole in the ice of a frozen pond then plunging in, shaking snow from the branches of a nearby juniper tree on their exposed body, and exercising much but eating little were all part of this toughening process. Even daily life had its way of hardening an individual for the rigors of combat. Herding sheep in the frigid cold of the Colorado Plateau and in the broiling sun of a summer desert, hauling wood and water for long distances, traveling on foot or horseback to distant trading posts, and the demanding requirements of the livestock industry created individuals prepared for the training in Marine boot camp. Indeed, many code talkers commented on how easy that experience was as compared to what their white counterparts felt about it. Even more important, however, than this physical preparation was that performed on a spiritual level. Failing to take the proper steps prior to entering hostilities, these Marines would certainly face defeat and death. Just as the Twins received supernatural help along the way that made them successful, so too did those entering the service. Central to this was prayer, protective objects, and ceremonial preparation. Prayer is a primary quality of Navajo existence. Each day starts and ends with it. At the rising and setting of the sun, an individual faces it and with white corn pollen in the morning and yellow corn meal in the evening, offers a pinch to the east or west followed by a prayer of thanksgiving and request for assistance. Prayer (sodizin—literally “my tongue must be holy”) and corn pollen (tádidíín—holy knowledge or light) were two important elements that to many code talkers kept them alive in the day-to-day grind of combat. Many accounts of their experience mention their consistent use of prayer, even when combat was so intense that they 165

Robert S. McPherson

could not stand up in their fighting position, but had to crouch to bless the day ahead. They carried with them, regardless of the circumstance, a small pouch of pollen, that to many was as or more important than their issued rifle and grenades. Inside this pouch there may have been an arrowhead or a life feather, both relating back to the story of the Twins. An arrowhead in Navajo culture is an object of protection. Evil fears it; flint or chert holds power and for some represents part of the flint armor shot loose from Big God, the first of the monsters killed by the brothers. In ceremonies today, patients seeking a cure often hold or wear arrowheads that ward harm away. For some code talkers, the presence of one of them served a similar purpose. Others had a life or breath feather (hyiná biltsós) which was a small plume taken from a live eagle. They possess the power to preserve life and serve as a means of carrying prayers to the holy people. The Twins used them to great effect as they encountered trials created by the monsters. Through this feather, the prayers and chants used for protection had greater efficacy. Often these objects would be given to a departing soldier during a ceremony called the ¸ ). The purpose of this rite is to bestow a positive blessing of good hope, Blessingway (Hozhóójí protection, and long life. Typically lasting one night, immersed in a series of chants that speak of beauty, harmony, and peace, even when their world may be one of death and ugliness, Navajo participants prepared themselves spiritually for war. Navajo beliefs encourage the individual to maintain hózhó¸ , a state of mental and spiritual tranquility, unruffled by surrounding events. Not all code talkers had this performed for them, but those who did, often testify of its effectiveness, of how the songs would come to mind during difficult times, and how they could feel their families’ presence thousands of miles away, supporting them through these prayers and songs. At times like that, the intangible became tangible as some reported hearing family voices, receiving dreams of comfort, or just hearing sounds connected with daily activity at home. Navajo code talkers, once embedded in their unit, worked alongside other Marines to perform their duties. Whether laying telephone wire, serving as messengers, communicating by radio, fighting in foxholes, or serving onboard ship, they lived the same type of life as their Anglo counterpart with a few exceptions. They rarely talked about their special skill or mission to others, performing their duty without fanfare. Their white companions understood that these Native Americans were speaking in their own language to deceive the enemy, but there was no discussion about the code and how it worked. That skill, however, was so highly prized and needed to be safeguarded that beside their Navajo communications counterparts, at least some code talkers received Anglo buddies that remained by their side to protect them. These men had orders to prevent the Navajo from falling into Japanese hands, even to the point of killing the person they were guarding if necessary. The opposite of that situation was when Navajo code talkers were “captured” by friendly forces. A fairly common predicament occurred when one would leave his regular unit where he was well-known and get into another sector with men who did not recognize him and were ever- vigilant for Japanese infiltrators. As with any race, some people have lighter or darker skin, differing facial features, and with Asians and Navajos a more or less pronounced epicanthic fold as an eyelid.17 Many anthropologists tie ancient Navajo migration directly to an Asian origin. Today, Athabascan-speakers, to which the Navajo and Apache languages belong, reside in Siberia, Alaska, and the Canadian Northwest, as well as in Arizona, New Mexico, and southeastern Utah. Even the slightest possibility of an individual being Japanese was enough to send an Anglo Marine into action. At least one code talker, Samuel Holiday, recognized this similarity. While combat has a way of hardening an individual and demonizing the enemy, Holiday reflected on an experience he had after calling in artillery on a Japanese position and later visiting the devastation he had 166

Of Codes and Culture

caused. He reported: “The dead Japanese had body parts scattered all over from our artillery’s direct hits, and the smell of gun smoke and rotting flesh was everywhere. These Japanese looked like Navajos with their brown skin and black hair. I felt strange looking at them and must have stared at them a long time because one of the marines pushed me and said, ‘What’s the matter with you, Chief? Are you afraid of dead Japanese?’ Looking at them really made me feel sad.”18 Years later, he visited Tokyo with his family and expressed similar sentiments: “When I first saw the Japanese in their homeland it brought tears to my eyes; everything I saw touched my heart. The experience was so powerful that it almost paralyzed me. . . . When I saw the little children it reminded me of my own grandchildren and more tears came. I thought of the many fathers killed during the war.”19 By the end of hostilities, the Navajo code talker program had proven to be highly successful— one that the Marines wanted to retain for possible future use. The top secret classification given to what these men accomplished remained firmly in place until 1968, twenty-three years during which the code talkers had to remain silent about their service. Before their discharge, the military informed them that the slightest mention of their role in the war would result in a lengthy incarceration in a military prison. They were obedient to their charge and remained silent, even though like many veterans, there were scenes of horror that the men felt they could not discuss. Fortunately, through a ceremony called “the Enemy Way,” Navajos deal with the trauma of war most commonly known today as Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). Hearkening back to the time of Monster Slayer and Born for Water, these two returning warriors felt the impact of ghost sickness and the influence of war. Weak and swooning from their illness caused by the spirits of those beings they had killed, the brothers needed to be relieved and placed back on the path of hózhó. ¸ The Enemy Way ceremony is a three night, four day ceremony that involves many people who participate in its activities, the procurement of an object that belonged to an “enemy,” and the eventual shooting of that object and the destruction of the enemy spirit bothering the returning soldier. It may be necessary to hold this ceremony in an extended as well as abbreviated form up to four times before rendering a cure. Many code talkers had it performed and testified of its effectiveness. Declassification of the code opened the door for public recognition of the men who had used it. Having agreed to remain silent about their activity during the war, they now could share with family, friends, and the public, what they experienced. In 1969 for the 22nd reunion of the Fourth Marine Division, Lee Cannon, a member of the Honors Committee, suggested that the Navajo code talkers receive official recognition. That June, fifteen code talkers from the Fourth Marine Division attended an event in Chicago with a code talker representative from each of the First, Second, Third, Fifth, and Sixth Divisions. Every man received a medallion and public recognition that had been long in coming. They also decided to gather again and form some type of an organization.20 In July 1971, sixty-nine code talkers met in Window Rock, Arizona, at a reunion sponsored by the Navajo Tribal Museum. From it grew the Navajo Code Talkers Association, creating an organization with an elected president, vice president, secretary, treasurer, and representative from each of the six Marine Divisions. Further national recognition blossomed when President Ronald Reagan declared August 14 “National Navajo Code Talkers Day” in 1982. Twelve years later, the Navajo Nation proclaimed August 14 “as the official day to honor and give special accolade annually to all members of the Navajo Code Talkers . . . and call upon all tribal, federal, state and local governmental agencies and the people of the Navajo Nation to observe the day with appropriate programs, ceremonies, and activities.”21 President Bill Clinton also capitalized on recognizing this group when he signed into law the “Honoring the Navajo Code Talkers Act” in 2000, authorizing a Congressional Gold Medal 167

Robert S. McPherson

to the first “Twenty-nine” who devised the code and a silver medal for all other code talkers. “The Congressional Gold Medal is not a military decoration but is the highest civilian award, determined by the majority of the U.S. Congress that Congress can bestow to honor a particular individual who or institution that performs an outstanding deed or act of service, and it requires congressional legislation.”22 The Twenty-nine received their Congressional Gold Medals on July 26, 2001, in Washington, D.C., while those awarded the silver medal obtained theirs in Window Rock, November 24, 2001. Approximately three thousand people attended the latter to watch the remaining code talkers and families of the deceased receive their awards.23 President George W. Bush broadened the scope of recognition by including over twenty other small groups of Native Americans who used their language to transmit important tactical information during combat. He signed the Code Talkers Recognition Act of 2008 on October 15 as a way of thanking all American Indians for their contribution during World Wars I and II. Thus ended an episode in American military history in which race and culture played a significant role in defeating a determined enemy. The Navajo code was never broken; the Japanese never captured anyone who employed it; all remained silent about the part they had played until it was declassified; and the entire system built upon a language and culture that the dominant society had tried to erase, saved thousands of lives. From the Navajo perspective, the ability to do so came from the holy people through a plan they had set in motion at the time of creation. They understood well that war was not just a test of physical and mental challenges, but also one of spiritual strength and assistance far beyond that of mortal man.

Notes 1 Much of the information for this chapter is taken from my and Samuel Holiday’s book Under the Eagle: Samuel Holiday, Navajo Code Talker (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2013). Those desiring more detailed information should refer to it. 2 For additional information on the code talker experience, see Ed Gilbert, Native American Code Talkers in World War II (New York: Osprey, 2008); Kenji Kawano, Warriors: Navajo Code Talkers (Flagstaff, Arizona: Northland, 1990); Stephen Mack, It Had to Be Done: The Navajo Code Talkers Remember World War II (Marana, Arizona: Whispering Dove Design, 2008); Sally McClain, Navajo Weapon: The Navajo Code Talkers (Tucson, Arizona: Rio Nuevo, 2001); Chester Nez with Judith Schiess Avila, Code Talker: The First and Only Memoir by One of the Original Navajo Code Talkers of World War II (New York: Berkley Caliber Publishing, 2011); and Doris A. Paul, The Navajo Code Talkers (Bryn Mawr, PA: Dorrance, 1973). 3 Rebecca Jacobs, “Heroes in Word and Deed,” Indian Country Today, August 10, 2011: 21; William C. Meadows, “Honoring Native American Code Talkers: The Road to the Code Talkers Recognition Act of 2008 (Public Law 110–420)” American Indian Culture and Research Journal 35, No. 3 (Fall 2011): 4. 4 Jacobs, “Heroes in Word,” 21. 5 Meadows, “Honoring Native American Code Talkers,” 10. 6 Ibid., 6, 8. 7 Jacobs, “Heroes in Word,” 21. 8 Samuel Moon, Tall Sheep: Harry Goulding, Monument Valley Trader (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1992), 167, 170. 9 Philip Johnston, “Indian Jargon Won our Battles!” n.d., Special Collections, Cline Library, Northern Arizona University, Flagstaff, Arizona. 10 McClain, Navajo Weapon, 49–53. 11 Philip Johnston interview by John Sylvester, Doris Duke #954, Doris Duke Oral History Project, Special Collections, J. Willard Marriott Library, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, Utah, 46, 56. 12 Johnston, “Indian Jargon,” 5. 13 “The Use of Navajo Indians for Radio Transmission Security Purposes,” April 15, 1944, “Navajo Code Talkers,” Special Collections, Cline Library, Northern Arizona University, Flagstaff, Arizona. 14 Howard M. Connor, quoted in Paul, Navajo Code Talkers, 73. 15 There are a number of different versions of the story of the Navajo Twins and their journey to their father. Among the most accessible are Don Mose, The Legend of the Navajo Hero Twins (Blanding, UT:

168

Of Codes and Culture

16 17

18 19 20 21 22 23

San Juan School District Media Center, 2009); Paul G. Zolbrod, Diné bahane’: The Navajo Creation Story (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1984); Washington Matthews, Navaho Legends (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1897, 1994); Aileen O’Bryan, Navaho Indian Myths (New York: Dover Publications, 1956, 1993); and Berard Haile, The Upward Moving and Emergence Way: The Gishin Biyé Version (Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press, 1981). Berard Haile, Origin Legend of the Navaho Enemy Way, Yale University Press Publications in Anthropology, no. 17 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1938). See Clark Wissler, Observations on the Face and Teeth of the North American Indians, Anthropological Papers of the American Museum of Natural History 33, Part I (New York: American Museum of Natural History, 1931), 15. Wissler observes that sixty-two percent of Navajo men and sixty-six percent of Navajo women have an epicanthic fold, while Asians have a hundred percent. Presence or absence of this quality can be explained through intermarriage over an extended period of time with people of differing racial stock. Holiday and McPherson, Under the Eagle, 137–138. Ibid., 212. McClain, Navajo Weapon, 230–233. Nathan J. Tohtsoni, “A Matter of Respect: Code Talker Concerned over Lack of Respect,” Navajo Times, September 7, 2000, A-7. Meadows, “Honoring Native American Code Talkers,” 18. Christine Benally, Harrison Lapahie, Jr., and Jean Whitehorse, “Comments Concerning the Silver Congressional Medal of Honors Ceremony for the Navajo Code Talkers,” December 5, 2001, www. lapahie.com/NCT_Silver_Awards.cfm accessed on 5/5/2011

169

This page intentionally left blank

15 NISEI WHO SAID “NO” Japanese American Draft Resistance in World War II Eric L. Muller

In July of 1946, the Nisei1 soldiers of the racially segregated 442nd Regimental Combat Team returned from three years of grueling service in Europe to a White House welcome from President Harry S. Truman. “You fought not only the enemy, but you fought prejudice, and you won,”2 the President told the troops and the nation. For decades after the war, the story of these soldiers’ willingness to fight and die for their country while the federal War Relocation Authority (WRA) confined their parents and siblings in desolate camps on account of race dominated the understanding of Japanese American military service and Japanese American loyalty, not just in their community but in the broader public mind. Only in recent years has word seeped out about a different, smaller group of young Nisei men who chose to resist the draft from inside the camps. The told-and-retold story of the soldiers of the 442nd has never allowed for much nuance: “the myth took hold that all those Nisei who served in the military did so on a voluntary basis”3 and out of fervent patriotism. That myth holds to this day, notwithstanding that the government drew only one-third as many volunteers from the camps as it expected,4 that most of those who served from the camps were drafted, and that those who served surely had many reasons (apart from or in addition to patriotism) to escape life in camp for military service. Interestingly, as the draft resisters’ story has belatedly become known, it has acquired a mythical quality as well: like the soldiers, the resisters were also all patriots, fighting the draft in order to establish the unconstitutionality of the government’s uprooting and imprisonment of the entire Japanese American population of the West Coast. A Japanese American community recognition ceremony in 2002 went so far as to label them all as “resisters of conscience.”5 This chapter leaves to others the overdue task of revisiting the story of Japanese American military service, focusing instead on the story of the resisters. It recounts the circumstances that led to draft resistance by Japanese Americans imprisoned on the basis of their race, the different ways in which that resistance unfolded at the different WRA camps, and the surprisingly disparate reactions of federal judges to the government’s efforts to punish the resistance. It concludes that while resistance at the camps stemmed from similar circumstances and shared a common experiential and emotional grounding, it expressed itself in the nuanced and varied ways that we would expect of complex individuals reacting to the provocations of race-based exile and prolonged captivity. The notion that military service might earn a soldier (and his people) American citizenship and an American identity has an old pedigree. In April 1863, Frederick Douglass said at a Philadelphia recruiting rally that if a black man could “get upon his person the brass letters ‘U.S.’ . . ., 171

Eric L. Muller

an eagle on his button, and a musket on his shoulder, and bullets in his pocket, there is no power on earth . . . which can deny that he has earned the right of citizenship in the United States.”6 Douglass’s appeal was grounded in the intuition that a person willing to shoulder the greatest burden of citizenship—military service—ought thereby to earn the benefits of it. Citizenship for African American soldiers serving in the Union Army in the Civil War did not come until after the war ended, when Congress, through statute and then constitutional amendment, made clear that all people born in the United States (soldiers and non-soldiers alike) were citizens regardless of their race.7 But Congress enacted Douglass’s notion into law—for at least white and black non-citizen soldiers—in amendments to the naturalization laws in May of 1918 which made every active-duty non-citizen soldier eligible to naturalize immediately.8 There was a catch, though, for Asian immigrant soldiers—Chinese, Japanese, and Filipino immigrants who had taken up arms for the United States in the Great War. Because naturalization was available only to white people and people of African descent, the Supreme Court held in 1925 that the 1918 amendments could not authorize naturalization for a Japanese immigrant who had served from 1913 to 1923 in the U.S. Coast Guard.9 It took ten years for the Japanese American Citizens League (“JACL”), a social and lobbying organization of upwardly mobile Nisei that formed in the 1920s, to persuade Congress that non-citizen World War I veterans of Asian origin deserved the privilege of citizenship. The Nye-Lea Act of 1935, which implemented that idea, was a major accomplishment for the JACL and a milestone in the development of the connection between military service and the rights of citizenship.10 All of this unraveled for people of Japanese ancestry in the aftermath of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. Most of the U.S. mainland’s roughly one hundred twenty-seven thousand Japanese and Japanese Americans lived along the West Coast; about twothirds of them were U.S. citizens.11 When Congress enacted the Selective Training and Service Act of 1940, its draft provisions applied to Japanese Americans just as they did to all others, and as a result, some five thousand Nisei were serving in the military at the time of the Pearl Harbor attack. These soldiers quickly found themselves discharged outright from the service or transferred to menial jobs at posts away from the West Coast simply on the basis of their ancestry.12 Early in 1942, the Selective Service pressed further and switched the draft classification of all American citizens of Japanese ancestry to IV-C, which was the category for aliens unacceptable to the armed forces. This was a disturbing development for the Nisei, most of whom had spent their entire lives in the United States and thought of themselves as Americans, yet suddenly found themselves as aliens in the eyes of their government. In the mid-1930s, the Japanese American community had fought to establish that military service could bring citizenship rights to aliens; in the wake of Pearl Harbor, the government’s military policies undermined the guarantee of citizenship rights for citizens. This was in some respects the least of the deprivations the government visited on the Japanese American community of the West Coast after the country went to war with Japan. On February 19, 1942, President Franklin Roosevelt acceded to the requests of the War Department by signing an executive order (E.O. 9066) that gave the military carte blanche to remove people from any military zone that it might designate. Though phrased neutrally, the order’s objective was to empower the military to uproot and evict the entire ethnically Japanese population of the West Coast. Although the stated rationale for this mass action was to protect the West Coast from threats of subversion and espionage posed by an ethnic group whose loyalties were unknowable, decades of scholarship have debunked this rationale and documented the primary influences of economic opportunism, racism, and wartime hysteria.13 By March of 1942, the Nisei of the West Coast and their immigrant parents—some one hundred twenty thousand people—were living under a dusk-to-dawn curfew. Shortly thereafter, 172

Nisei Who Said “No”

the military began the process of forcing them from their homes into detention in so-called “assembly centers” or “reception centers,” mostly at large public places like racetracks and fairgrounds near major population centers. These were in reality makeshift prison camps surrounded by barbed wire, search lights, and armed guards; many thousands lived in stables that until shortly before their arrival had housed race horses. The community’s economic losses were staggering, and this is to say nothing of its psychic injuries. In the late summer and fall of 1942, the next wave of repression washed over the imprisoned community. The inmates at the “assembly centers” were placed on trains and shipped off to permanent camps in the interior, as far east as Arkansas.14 The government euphemistically called these facilities “relocation centers,” but in common parlance they were “concentration camps,” and they very much looked the part. Situated in desolate, intemperate locations, the camps featured row upon row of tarpaper-and-plywood barracks, communal latrines, laundries, and dining facilities, and barbed wire fences punctuated by guard towers with search lights. In the tightness of crowded barrack rooms and in the melee of mess halls, privacy evaporated and family structure degraded. The WRA set up schools for the Nisei and the inmates themselves created recreational programs, but there was idleness among young people, and predictable problems of gang formation and delinquency. Older inmates helped make the camp run, filling jobs ranging from sanitation to policing to health care to food service for government pay ranging from twelve to nineteen dollars per month. Unrest ranging from work stoppages to violence intermittently plagued the camps through the late fall of 1942 and the winter of 1943. Not all of the turmoil pitted Japanese Americans against white camp administrators; some of the most violent episodes stemmed from inmateon-inmate conflict. In a meaningful sense this conflict related back to the community’s pre-war experiences around citizenship and military service. The JACL, which had lobbied successfully for citizenship for World War I veterans in the 1930s, petitioned the government in November of 1942 to restore the Nisei to their “I-A” draft classification so that they could serve in the armed forces on the same basis as other Americans and, in the words of the JACL’s leader Mike Masaoka, “on the field of battle, in a baptism of blood, . . . prove to all who question that we are ready and willing to die for the one country we know and pledge allegiance to.”15 It was the old citizenship-through-service argument, but when voiced in a context where the entire Japanese American community had been uprooted and locked up without even the rudiments of due process, it fell on some ears as a betrayal of the community’s interests and grievances. At some camps JACL leaders were threatened and even attacked. In the late winter of 1943, the War Department announced that it would begin permitting Nisei to volunteer into the Army, not on an equal basis with white soldiers as the JACL had hoped, but in a segregated unit. Naturally, the War Department anticipated an outcry from the country if it handed weapons to young men whose presumed disloyalty had led the government to lock them up a year earlier. The WRA had a similar problem; it wanted to begin releasing Japanese Americans from its camps to take up jobs in the country’s interior but understood that communities would be unlikely to accept them if the government thought them dangerous. The military and the WRA decided to solve this problem by making every adult inmate fill out a four-page questionnaire that would permit a bureaucratic adjudication of the inmate’s loyalty or disloyalty; anyone who passed the test would qualify to serve in the military or leave camp for a civilian job. Government officials went into this process, called “registration,” with high hopes, but unsurprisingly it served more as a lightning rod for the community’s anger and fear than as an accurate barometer of loyalty. Especially provocative was a question asking the Nisei to “forswear” their loyalty to the Emperor of Japan (a loyalty they had never sworn in the first place) and a question asking if they would be willing to serve in the American Armed Forces wherever 173

Eric L. Muller

ordered. Sizable numbers of inmates gave negative or equivocal responses to one or both of these questions. Those whose answers led the government to a finding of “disloyalty” were packed off with their families in September of 1943 to tighter and tougher confinement at the Tule Lake Segregation Center in far northern California.16 As for the effort to drum up Nisei volunteers, this too was something of a flop. Only a third of the anticipated number of Nisei volunteered to join the segregated unit. These numbers proved sufficient, however, to staff the unit, at least when the relatively few volunteers from the camps on the mainland were combined with the more numerous Japanese American volunteers coming from Hawaii, where their community had been neither uprooted nor confined en masse. These men began going into combat in North Africa and Italy as early as September of 1943. News of their bravery—and of their high casualty rates—came back to the WRA camps across that autumn and winter to a mix of shock, pride, sadness, and anger. As death and injury depleted the ranks of the segregated unit late in 1943, Army officials decided that the time was right to restore the imprisoned Nisei to their “I-A” draft status. This was not simply an effort to find more bodies, though it was partly that; it was also the culmination of efforts by some within the War Department, the WRA, and the JACL to use the reopening of the draft as proof of the loyalty, Americanism, and assimilability of the Japanese American community in the eyes of the nation. The War Department announced the reopening of the draft on January 20, 1944. News of the reinstatement of the draft for the Nisei spread quickly in the camps. Unlike the loyalty registration requirement nearly a year earlier, which required immediate action on the part of all adult inmates, this news was just an abstract policy change, and so initially the camps remained quiet. As early as February 1944, however, young men began sporadically receiving notices to report for preinduction physical examinations. Suddenly, the dilemma of how to respond became very real, at least for those receiving the notices and their families. It bears emphasis that a young man’s decision about military service had ramifications not just for him but for his family. It is difficult to overstate the vulnerability of the incarcerated Japanese American family at this stage of the war. Families had lost most of their worldly possessions and remained in indefinite detention. If released, they had nowhere to go and no way to support themselves. The parents were aliens who had no chance of becoming citizens and many of whom faced language and cultural barriers in American society notwithstanding their long residence in the United States. For legal, linguistic, and cultural reasons, the parents’ wellbeing was often linked to the fortunes of their citizen children. This dependence was typically felt most keenly by the eldest sons; Japanese culture imposed on them a unique obligation to care for and protect their aging parents. The vulnerability of the family was one significant reason why the drive for volunteers from the camps in 1943 largely failed; many young men interested in military service could not imagine abandoning their families in camp voluntarily and preferred to wait for compulsory service. This helps explain why the draft proved, on the whole, so much more successful in the camps than had the effort to recruit volunteers. A significant majority of the young inmates who received draft notices ultimately complied with their orders. Some 2,800 of them would eventually leave camp to join the ranks of the 442nd in Europe.17 This group did not serve without resentments; they were as aware as any inmate of the injustices their government had practiced on them and their families. They simply chose to comply with the law, seeing the draft perhaps as another unwanted but unavoidable test of their devotion to their country, or perhaps as a chance to escape the tedium and oppression of life behind barbed wire, or perhaps as something else. More than three hundred Nisei, however, decided not to comply with their draft orders at eight of the ten WRA camps—Granada (Colorado), Heart Mountain ( Wyoming), Jerome and 174

Nisei Who Said “No”

Rohwer (Arkansas), Minidoka (Idaho), Poston (Arizona), Topaz (Utah), and Tule Lake (California).18 As will be seen, the resistance unfolded at the various camps in different ways. Like the draftees, who had their own reasons for complying with the law, the resisters had their own reasons for disobeying it. But the resisters opted for civil disobedience in reaction to a broadly shared set of experiences and deprivations. All of them had seen their lives upended and their entire community imprisoned while American citizens of Italian and German ancestry carried on with their lives. All of them were behind barbed wire without ever having been charged with misconduct or given an opportunity to contest their detention. They watched as the government wiped away their benefits of citizenship in countless ways, including by designating them as aliens unfit for military service. They knew the Army would not allow them to serve alongside whites. It is safe to say that all of the Nisei draft resisters came to their moment of decision along a similar path of bitterness and injustice. The best-organized resistance took root at the Heart Mountain Relocation Center. A small group of Nisei men had come together before the reopening of the draft to discuss what they saw as the illegality and unconstitutionality of the government’s entire program of removal and imprisonment of Japanese Americans. Although none of them was a lawyer, these men tended to think about and discuss their situation in legal terms. The reopening of the draft created an opportunity for this group to spread their message about constitutional violations to other inmates. Calling themselves the “Fair Play Committee,” they began holding meetings in mess halls around the camp and recruiting new members in the late winter and early spring of 1944. Theirs was a self-consciously “loyal” movement; membership in the Fair Play Committee was open only to Nisei who had answered “yes” to the question about swearing allegiance to the United States during registration back in 1943. They maintained that their detention violated due process and that they would agree to serve in the Army only if the government first “clarified” their rights as citizens. Their efforts were remarkably successful; by the late spring of 1944, sixty-three young men at Heart Mountain had refused to show up for their physical examinations.19 Arrested on federal charges of willful draft evasion, the federal government held them in county jails across Wyoming into the summer of 1944.20 The largest wave of draft resistance crested at the Poston Relocation Center in Arizona, the most populous of the WRA camps, but it took longer than at Heart Mountain. One reason for this was that Poston was really three camps separated from each other by not insignificant distances, which made the process of organizing inmate resistance more challenging. Another reason was that the government responded quickly and forcefully when an unidentified group of inmates began circulating leaflets critical of the draft. Administrators immediately secured the arrest on sedition charges of George Fujii, an inmate suspected of involvement in the creation of the leaflets. This well-publicized arrest tamped down but did not entirely suppress the incipient resistance movement. Much to everyone’s surprise, however, Fujii was quickly acquitted of sedition and returned to Poston; shortly thereafter, the numbers of young men resisting the draft skyrocketed. These men were arrested and charged with draft evasion, but unlike the Heart Mountain resisters, the Poston defendants were granted bail and returned to camp. Their seemingly unfettered presence encouraged resistance by others. Ultimately more than one hundred young men resisted the draft at Poston. Combined, Heart Mountain and Poston produced well over half of the total number of Nisei draft resisters. Noncompliance at the other camps was less organized and its messaging less uniform and controlled. At the Granada Relocation Center, for example, a total of twenty-two Nisei refused the draft between February and May of 1944, mostly as solitary expressions of dissent rather than in coordination. Interestingly, they gave more diverse reasons for their decisions than did the Fair Play Committee at Heart Mountain. Some objected to the racial segregation of the 175

Eric L. Muller

442nd Regimental Combat Team. Some “acted out of duty to their parents and their families.”21 Some were resentful of being asked to risk their lives for “the goddamn bastards in California who kicked us out and enriched themselves at our expense.”22 Some voiced disloyalty born of despair: as one said, “I don’t think I owe the United States anything after the way they have been treating us, and I don’t see my future in the United States.”23 Perhaps the most unusual group of resisters was the twenty-seven from the Tule Lake Segregation Center. As noted earlier, Tule Lake had become the WRA’s “segregation” facility in the fall of 1943—the camp where it warehoused those who had failed its loyalty test along with family members who did not wish to be separated from them. Many at Tule Lake had taken the further affirmative steps of requesting repatriation to Japan (in the case of Japanese resident aliens) or expatriation to Japan and renunciation of citizenship (in the case of U.S. citizens). Despite these differences, the government drafted young men out of Tule Lake and prosecuted those who resisted, just like at the other camps. Tom Noda, a Tule Lake resister, had already requested expatriation at the time he got his draft notice; his reasoning smacks of simple disgust: “The way I figured, [being sentenced for draft evasion] couldn’t be no worse than it was anyway. We were in prison [at Tule Lake] to begin with.”24 Even this very brief review of the circumstances of, and rationales for, draft resistance at the WRA camps reveals more diversity than the standard narrative encompasses. Because of the rigorous organization and message control of the Heart Mountain group and their postwar persistence in speaking up about their legal and constitutional position, their narrative came to serve as a proxy for all of the resisters. But the full story is not so uniform or one-dimensional.25 Several hundred young men in the WRA camps resisted the draft for an array of reasons ranging from carefully formulated legal positions to instincts about the guarantees of citizenship to resentment over loss and mistreatment to feelings of despairing disloyalty. Even within the Heart Mountain group, some saw certain of their colleagues try to beat their draft evasion charges on technicalities rather than on constitutional principle and came to doubt that every group member was faithful to its constitutional positions.26 Almost equally diverse were the approaches federal judges took across the western United States in the felony prosecutions of Nisei for draft evasion in 1944 and 1945. In those cases where the defendants pled not guilty and went to trial rather than entering guilty pleas, judges tended to run kangaroo courts. This was clearest in federal court in Idaho, where U.S. District Judge Chase Clark, already on record (in an earlier incarnation as Idaho’s governor) as distrusting of all people of Japanese ancestry and urging their confinement, ran thirty-three jury trials for the resisters from the Minidoka Relocation Centers in just thirteen days, constantly seating and re-seating subsets of the same thirty-four jurors for trial after trial.27 Unsurprisingly, these juries convicted all of the defendants in short order. Also troubling was the mass trial of sixty-three of the Heart Mountain draft resisters in federal court in Cheyenne, Wyoming. There Federal Judge T. Blake Kennedy addressed the defendants as “you Jap boys” in open court, government witnesses denied knowing why Japanese Americans had been sent to Heart Mountain and denied that the inmates were “restrained of their liberties in any sense,” and the prosecutor suggested to the jury that the defendants wanted their freedom so that they could go out and signal Japanese submarines.28 Again, all were convicted. In other jurisdictions, trials were quick and mundane affairs. Many defendants entered guilty pleas rather than going to trial in the hope of avoiding lengthy jail terms. Those who pled guilty tended to do better than those who went to trial when it came time for sentencing. Their prison terms generally ran in the range of six to eight months, although the resisters who pled guilty before Judge Clark in Idaho received eighteen-month sentences. The defendants who took their cases to trial, by contrast, received terms in federal penitentiaries 176

Nisei Who Said “No”

ranging from just over two years (in the case of the resisters from Granada in Colorado) to three years (in the case of the Heart Mountain resisters in Wyoming) to three years and three months (in the case of the Minidoka resisters in Idaho). This was a significant range of punishments for the same crime, but the truly extraordinary punishments were those imposed on the Poston resisters. Groups of resisters from Poston came before Arizona Federal District Judge David Ling for sentencing at three different points between 1944 and 1946. A first group of ten Nisei who pled guilty in the middle of 1944 received sentences of three years’ imprisonment—much longer than the sentences imposed on others who pled guilty in other jurisdictions and a full year longer even than the resisters who took their cases to trial in Idaho. A year later, Judge Ling imposed sentences of just one year on a second small group of Poston resisters who submitted to trials on stipulated facts. But by far the largest group of Poston resisters, sentenced as late as June of 1946 because of procedural delays in their cases, received no jail time at all and a fine of just one penny. Since the historical record does not reveal Judge Ling’s stated reasons for any of these sentences, it is impossible to say why he saw the identical crime as warranting sentences of three years’ imprisonment, one year’s imprisonment, and a one penny fine at three different points in time. Perhaps the country’s improving fortunes in the war between mid-1944 and mid-1945 and its ultimate victory over Japan in August of 1945 led him to reassess the harmfulness of the resisters’ conduct as the war neared conclusion. Only one camp’s draft resisters managed to avoid felony convictions. These were the twenty-seven Nisei from the Tule Lake Segregation Center, tried in Eureka, California, in July of 1944, by U.S. District Judge Louis Goodman. Goodman took a radically different, much more sympathetic view of the young men’s predicament than any of the other judges hearing these cases. He held that it was “shocking to the conscience”—and therefore a violation of the due process of law guaranteed by the Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution—to imprison a person on the basis of suspected racial disloyalty, compel him to serve in the armed forces, and then prosecute him for refusing. The government chose not to file an appeal from Judge Goodman’s dismissal of the draft evasion charges, and so the twenty-seven Tule Lake resisters enjoyed the pyrrhic victory of beating criminal charges only to return to imprisonment at Tule Lake. This chapter opened with President Truman’s celebration of the Nisei soldiers of the 442nd Regimental Combat Team in July of 1946. A year and a half after that event, just before Christmas in 1947, he turned his attention to the Nisei draft resisters. The Missourian issued pardons to all of them, embracing the assessment of his pardon review board that the resisters had “deeply resent[ed] classification as undesirables” and had “remained loyal to the United States and indicated a desire to remain in this country and to fight in its defense, provided their rights of citizenship were recognized.”29 This was a progressive position for the federal government to take so soon after the war’s end. Notably, it was far more progressive than that of the mainstream Japanese American community at the time, and for several decades thereafter. That community, working to recover from the trauma and stigma of its unjust wartime captivity, had little capacity to see the Nisei draft resisters as anything but disloyal cowards who had besmirched the public image of Japanese Americans at a time when it most needed polishing. Through the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s, the resisters were shunned and their story silenced. It was not until the early 1980s that some of the members of the Heart Mountain Fair Play Committee began to speak publicly about their experiences and to try to reshape their community’s understanding of their wartime resistance as born of patriotism and grounded in constitutional principle. It would be another twenty years before the Japanese American Citizens League could come to embrace that view and to acknowledge its own role in undermining the resisters in the camps and in the community after the war. While it is unfortunate that community recognition of the resisters was so long in coming, it is not surprising. The Heart Mountain Fair Play Committee turned the JACL’s approach to 177

Eric L. Muller

military service and citizenship on its head. In the years before the war, the JACL had invested energy in advancing the argument that military service should establish the right to full citizenship. In responding to the government’s draft notices, the Fair Play Committee took exactly the opposite view of the relationship between service and citizenship: only if the government confirmed that they were citizens would the Nisei serve. In a sense, the JACL accepted the deprivation of Nisei citizenship and urged the Japanese American community to join the Army in order to restore it. The Fair Play Committee did not accept the initial deprivation and therefore saw no moral or legal obligation to serve until the government revoked it. As has been shown, however, the Fair Play Committee’s carefully articulated legal positions did not capture the whole truth of the experiences and motivations of the several hundred Nisei who chose to refuse their draft notices and suffer criminal prosecution and community condemnation for their choice. Although reacting to a common experience of racial uprooting, deportation, and confinement, each of the Nisei draft resisters of World War II walked his own path to civil disobedience. Professor Cherstin Lyon is surely correct in characterizing the decision whether to leave a concentration camp to fight for some other person’s freedom as “a terrible burden for a young man to bear.”30

Notes 1 The term “Nisei” refers to the generation of children born in the United States to Japanese immigrant parents. 2 Quoted in Eric L. Muller, Free to Die for Their Country: The Story of the Japanese American Draft Resisters in World War II (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2001), 198. 3 Cherstin M. Lyon, Prisons and Patriots: Japanese American Wartime Citizenship, Civil Disobedience, and Historical Memory (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2012), 80. 4 Muller, Free to Die, 49; Lyon, Prisons and Patriots, 122–123. 5 Nisei Resisters of Conscience Recognition and Reconciliation Ceremony. May 11, 2002, accessed August 9, 2014. www.jacl.org/news/documents/JACLResistersofConscience.pdf (site discontinued). 6 Quoted in David W. Blight, Frederick Douglass’ Civil War: Keeping Faith in Jubilee (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1991), 161. 7 Civil Rights Act of 1866, 14 Stat. 27–30; U.S. Const. amend. XIV. 8 Act of May 9, 1918. 9 Toyota v. United States, 268 U.S. 402 (1925). 10 Lucy Salyer, “Baptism by Fire: Race, Military Service, and U.S. Citizenship Policy, 1918–1935.” Journal of American History 91, No. 3 (2004): 847–876. 11 Roger Daniels, Asian America: Chinese and Japanese in the United States Since 1850 (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1988), 156. 12 James C. McNaughton, “Japanese Americans and the U.S. Army: A Historical Reconsideration.” Army History 99 (Summer–Fall 2003): 11. 13 The sources are many, but any list would have to include Dorothy Swaine Thomas, and Richard S. Nishimoto, The Spoilage (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1946); Morton Grodzins, Americans Betrayed: Politics and the Japanese Evacuation (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1949); Dorothy Swaine Thomas, Charles Kikuchi, and Richard S. Nishimoto, The Salvage: Japanese American Evacuation and Resettlement (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1952); Roger Daniels, Concentration Camps USA: Japanese Americans and World War II (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1971); Michi Weglyn, Years of Infamy: The Untold Story of America’s Concentration Camps (New York: Morrow, 1976); Peter H. Irons, Justice at War (New York: Oxford University Press, 1983). For more on the groundlessness of government lawyers’ depiction of military necessity due to a potential Japanese invasion of the West Coast, see Eric L. Muller, “Hirabayashi and the Invasion Evasion,” North Carolina Law Review 88 (2010): 1333–1389. 14 Two of the temporary “reception centers”—Manzanar in California and Colorado River (Poston) in Arizona—continued in operation, shifting their designation to permanent “relocation centers.” 15 Quoted in Muller, Free to Die, 42–43.

178

Nisei Who Said “No” 16 For more on the failed registration process and the government’s methods of adjudicating “loyalty” and “disloyalty,” see Eric L. Muller, American Inquisition: The Hunt for Japanese American Disloyalty in World War II (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2008). 17 U.S. Department of the Interior, The Evacuated People (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1946), 128. 18 There is no record of prosecutions of Japanese Americans for draft resistance at the Manzanar Relocation Center in California or the Gila River Relocation Center in Arizona. 19 Later another 25 Heart Mountain Nisei would similarly refuse their draft orders, bringing the total number of resisters at Heart Mountain to 88. This was the second largest total at any of the camps; only Poston produced a larger number of resisters. Poston, however, had a much larger total population than Heart Mountain, so Heart Mountain’s resistance was the largest of any of the camps per capita. 20 Later in 1944, federal prosecutors separately charged the leadership of the Fair Play Committee with illegally conspiring to counsel draft resistance. They were convicted and went to prison until an appeals court overturned their convictions early in 1946. For more on the draft resistance at Heart Mountain, including this conspiracy prosecution, see Muller, Free to Die, 101–124. 21 Lyon, Prisons and Patriots, 139. 22 Quoted in Ibid., 133. 23 Quoted in Ibid., 134. 24 Quoted in Muller, Free to Die, 66. 25 This is a point that Cherstin Lyon makes particularly well in Prisons and Patriots, her excellent study of the Nisei resisters from the Granada and Topaz Relocation Centers. 26 Muller, Free to Die, 187–188. 27 The story of the Minidoka resisters’ trials is told in Eric L. Muller, “The Minidoka Draft Resisters in a Federal Kangaroo Court” in Nikkei in the Pacific Northwest: Japanese Americans and Japanese Canadians in the Twentieth Century, eds. Louis Fiset and Gail M. Nomura (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2005), 171–189. 28 Muller, Free to Die, 110–111. 29 Quoted in Ibid., 81. 30 Lyon, Prisons and Patriots, 4.

179

This page intentionally left blank

PART IV

Race and the Military during the American Century Post-World War II Politics, Racial Desegregation, the African American Vietnam Experience, and Latino Service in the Armed Forces

This page intentionally left blank

16 “THE VETERANS’ ANGLE” Ninety-Third Division Ex-GI Vasco Hale, Disability, and the NAACP’s Struggle for Fair Housing and Power in Post-World War II Hartford, Connecticut Robert F. Jefferson, Jr. “During and since World War II, considerable attention has been focused on the problems and the needs of veterans. This focus of attention has had the effect of stereotyping the veteran as a specific and peculiarly different human phenomenon. While it is true that the individual veteran does have many problems which are more less common to all men and women discharged from the service, it is equally true that each veteran has particular hopes, aspirations, needs, and problems which may be peculiarly his own.” Vasco Hale, 1948

The ways in which African American inchoate understandings of disability had developed alongside the rising tide of black campaigns waged against unemployment and housing displacement during the late 1940s and throughout the 1950s provide us with a critical chapter for examining the Modern Civil Rights Movement that has been largely unwritten until now. Not only that, but the black struggle for equality took place in some of the most unlikely of places in the Northeast and had engaged the energies of one of its most committed constituents. Consider Hartford, Connecticut, and the activities of Vasco Hale in the late 1940s, for instance. In January of 1948, members of the Hartford Branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) arranged a radio program to discuss the pressing living conditions that African Americans faced in the city. During the half-hour segment, city dwellers from all walks of life heard remarks made by then Mayor Cyril Coleman followed by NAACP Executive Secretary Walter White. Piped in from the New York City National Office, White spoke of his personal experiences with racial discrimination and the bouts of prejudice encountered by black people all across the country. At the end of his address, however, the NAACP head threw down a gauntlet of sorts when he specifically called attention to the housing conditions in Hartford and the need for its membership to strengthen its forces in order to wage their fight on the local level.1 Hundreds of Hartford NAACP members heard White’s message of unity and struggle, which resulted in renewed efforts by the branch to reevaluate the structure of the organization and the techniques used to gain access to adequate housing. Among the members who engaged in such a reorienting process was Vasco Hale—a relatively recent newcomer to the Insurance City. A former mathematics schoolteacher, Hale left his hometown in West Virginia in 1942 to join the military and enlisted in the U.S. Army before attending Officers Candidate School at Fort 183

Robert F. Jefferson, Jr.

Belvoir, Virginia. After becoming a commissioned officer, he reported to Fort Huachuca, Arizona, where he was assigned to the all-black U.S. Ninety-third Infantry Division. Two months later, the division travelled to Louisiana in the spring of 1943 to participate in maneuvers with the Third Army. That May, his military career reached new heights when the Army promoted Hale to first lieutenant and subsequently assigned him as the executive officer to Company C of the division’s 318th Engineering Battalion during its desert training at Camp Clipper, California. There, he took on the job of acquainting new division members in live grenade throwing. By the fall of 1943, Hale had earned a reputation among his men in his unit as a brilliant, determined, and soft-spoken leader. In the spring of 1943, the West Virginia State College graduate and other members of the division participated in the Third Army Maneuvers in Louisiana before moving to Camp Clipper, California, that summer. But while preparing to be deployed overseas, Hale’s life took a traumatic turn. During a training exercise, he was involved in a horrible explosion that blinded him in both eyes, caused him to lose his right hand and four fingers of his left hand, while rendering him partially deaf. At that moment, Hale joined an exclusive group of veterans, becoming one of only a handful of African Americans serving in World War II who were blinded, rendered partially deaf, and received bilateral hand amputations as a result of sustaining traumatic injuries. But Hale’s wounds were more extensive. Despite receiving nine blood transfusions and enduring lengthy stints in five different military hospitals, medics told him that he would never regain smell or taste. As he began his long road to recovery, Hale publicly expressed a great deal of cheerfulness, but he also privately expressed bitterness about the defective charge that caused his accident as well as deep foreboding over his prospects for the future. In fact, one of the most difficult challenges he faced was writing letters to his wife and his parents, informing them of his locations and the circumstances that led to his hospitalization.2 Undaunted, however, the ex-heavyweight boxer staged what he called “his fighting comeback.” At Old Farms Convalescent Hospital in Avon, Connecticut, Hale, along with several other veterans, took classes in leatherwork before moving on to working a small loom and weaving cloth. There, he made comforters and tablecloths while devoting much of his time studying to re-enter college in the hope of earning a master’s degree in vocational guidance counseling. When asked about his post-injury adjustments at the time, he insisted, “I am not a disabled veteran. I’m a little bit handicapped, perhaps, but I am able to work and work hard. The exhibit of my handwork is to prove that I can earn my own way. I have sold more than $400 worth of woven and leather articles recently. But I am not out to make money. This display is to prove to any college official that my mind and spirit are uninjured.”3 After unsuccessfully applying to eight programs in education, Hale’s dream was later realized when Boston University admitted him in 1947 and he graduated a year later.4 Shortly afterwards, he moved on to Hartford, Connecticut, where he renewed his acquaintance with his wife Ethel and his pursuit of aiding his fellow wounded brethren. Yet, in attempting to deal with the conditions that veterans with disabilities faced in the post-World War II world, Hale’s education was just beginning. After arriving in Hartford, the thirty-three year old veteran went to work as a consultant for the inter-group relations department of the Connecticut Interracial Commission where he quickly became aware of the pressing housing and employment woes that African Americans faced while living in the city at the time.5 As he moved about through various neighborhoods in the Greater Hartford metropolitan area, Hale could not help but notice the numerous examples where the economic and social conditions encountered by the most impoverished sectors of the black working class resembled many of the scenes so vividly described in Charles Dickens’s epic novel, Hard Times. But for Hale, his sensibilities as a black man and as a newly discharged ex-GI were also informed by the recent injuries 184

“The Veterans’ Angle”

he sustained during the war. After witnessing a number of ex-GIs exhaust their meager savings while seeking adequate housing in the city, he attended the NAACP’s New England Regional Conference where he remarked, “Hartford provides ex-soldiers like myself with a workable angle through which they can at least be able to pay for a home, become participating citizens in the community, and be especially helpful to the handicapped.”6 With that, Vasco Hale’s remarks are striking because at that moment, he insinuated the everyday concerns of wounded veterans returning home from World War II into the broader postwar problems, needs, and desires that African Americans in Hartford and other northern cities encountered throughout the late 1940s. Very few public officials took note of the universe of signals illuminated by black World War II ex-GIs like Hale and other northern black leaders of disability and race during the period nor were they necessarily sensitive to or cognizant of the language they employed to bring attention to such matters. Examining interactions between disabled black veterans like Vasco Hale and the struggle for adequate housing in Hartford Connecticut’s North and East End during the 1950s provides an excellent case study for understanding the possibilities and limitations of how latent understandings of disability and race coalesced and bumped heads with traditional social movements. This essay illuminates the crystallization of such a perspective and the campaigns that it launched by arguing that blinded veterans like Vasco Hale framed, interpreted, and articulated their civil rights struggle through their own personal issues, needs, and concerns. Often the strategies they adopted were tinged with self-understandings of their injuries, a militant sense of normalization, and masculine notions of self-dignity, producing numerous moments of pity, aversion, fear, and fascination among their able-bodied audiences. But at the same time, by presenting himself as a disabled veteran and black man, Hale, like many other African Americans with disabilities were able to challenge the able-bodied black and white populations alike to confront and contemplate both social and economic oppression as two sides of the same coin. By investigating the interaction of race and disability in the lives of Black Hartford residents like Vasco Hale, we will move to a greater understanding of the multifaceted issues and strategies that shaped and continue to transform the modern Civil Rights Movement. This piece will facilitate the development of disability studies as a new line of inquiry within the larger field of race and African American military history.7 In many ways, Vasco Hale entered a Hartford, Connecticut, world that was similar to other northern Rust Belt cities after the Second World War. During the 1940s, nearly six thousand black people moved into the city, bringing the total African American population in the city to 12,790 or 4.3 percent of the metropolitan population.8 The mechanization of agriculture brought most of the newcomers to Hartford from the tobacco fields of Georgia, North Carolina, and Virginia. Most of the migrants gained employment as domestic and protective workers with a smattering landing work in the munitions and aircraft factories, and tool and die plants. Companies also hired African Americans as electricians, mail clerks, messengers, chauffeurs, truck drivers, maintenance workers, and janitors. The hopes of African American migrants who moved into the city of gaining permanent job stability proved short-lived. Given the hostility that black workers encountered historically from their white counterpart on the shop floor, black Hartford laborers were skeptical of the Congress of Industrial Organization’s (CIO) wartime efforts to organize non-union members in the plants. Postwar reconversion from wartime to peacetime industry triggered waves of unemployment among African Americans in the city.9 The downward spiral of housing conditions followed closely the dwindling aspirations that black workers and veterans held for obtaining access to jobs. As black unemployment rose, Hartford blacks who were given pink slips were forced out of defense dwellings, and many returning veterans had to turn to the public housing projects of Bellevue Square and Airport Homes or multiple family housing units located in Charter Oak Terrace, areas concentrated in 185

Robert F. Jefferson, Jr.

the already overcrowded black districts of the city.10 Meanwhile, the Hartford black community continued to work diligently to create a vast repertoire of institutions of collective struggle and racial solidarity. Before the Civil War, the Insurance Capital of the World served as a staging area for protest with black city leaders like James W.C. Pennington railing against the institution of slavery at every turn. And throughout the Second World War, members of the Connecticut Interracial Commission, led by Frank Simpson, pushed for greater African American presence in the defense industries and in state government service, resulting in the employment of more than two thousand black workers in the factories and the hiring of the city’s first black female officer and exchange operator with the Southern New England Telephone Company.11 The post-World War II world that black Hartford found and the manner in which they lived and labored have been largely ignored by scholars of African American life in the New Deal and Civil Rights era. For some time, historians and students of African American activism have moved beyond the “grand narratives of the civil rights struggle,” moving from histories structured around Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcolm X, and the national organizations such as the NAACP, Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), and the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) and having advanced various interpretations of the everyday struggles of ordinary people and power. They have ushered in a new analytical framework, emphasizing the ways in which community formation, memory telling, and citizenship affected grassroots black political mobilization.12 But on the other hand, their efforts have exposed a curious silence in recent scholarship, namely the presence of black veterans with disabilities and their contribution to civil rights and ultimately human rights struggle. At the same time, while pointing out that disability history is much more than stories overcoming obstacles, disability historians have demonstrated that our understanding of American politics and culture will remain incomplete if we do not grapple with the connection between it and the broader contours of American life. Furthermore, they have explored how discrimination has affected the lives of Americans with disabilities and excavated the history of the disability rights movement from the late nineteenth century through the passage of the American Disabilities Act of 1990. For example, David Gerber has addressed the history of veterans with disabilities from the founding of the nation to the Iraq War. Employing various theoretical methodologies, most of these works have covered a multitude of themes (civil rights, labor, immigration, etc.) and have successfully moved disability studies away from one couched solely within the realm of the medical profession to one grounded in social construction. More important, these scholars have successfully refuted the assumption that disability history is relatively new and have taught us that disability must be fully incorporated in elementary, secondary, and post-secondary curricula.13 But their timely interventions exposes a curious gap in the literature as only cursory attention is paid to the ways in which race and disability together have shaped the experiences of African Americans with disabilities in the American past. Thus both sets of historiography represent two parallel lines running adjacent to each other while rarely touching, with black ex-GIs with disabilities occupying the spaces in between them. It was at the corner of Hubbard Street and Blue Hills Avenue in Hartford’s North End during the fall of 1948, that the Civil Rights Movement and disability issues fused together through the self-creative activities of black veterans like Vasco Hale. For example, when he and his wife Ethel arrived in Hartford, they entered a landscape that was marked by northern racial segregation policies, deplorable living conditions, and a protest struggle engulfed in personal acrimony. De facto racism confined black city dwellers to the northern end of the town and to the worst and most menial jobs in the city. Signs announcing “We refuse service to Negroes” appeared frequently in the windows of many hotels, bars, and restaurants, particularly in eastern Hartford, and the city’s school system shunted black children off to schools that were often poorly funded, 186

“The Veterans’ Angle”

under-equipped, and overcrowded. The concrete deprivations of life for urban black residents did not translate into black organization, however. Political struggles within the Hartford NAACP chapter also stymied the activities and growth of the local branch throughout the 1940s. While the branch president Allen Jackson preferred a more direct approach in order to mobilize, other members of the association’s local leadership were more inclined to adopt a gradualist strategy, namely, to work quietly through influential friends and individuals in the city to secure greater employment opportunities and access to service in stores, hotels, and restaurants. Throughout 1945 and 1946, the Hartford local association had almost ceased to operate altogether. And by 1948, the branch had dwindled to a paltry membership of 210. Just as much as members of the NAACP were undecided about ways to quell the social and economic tensions in the city, the local branch of the National Urban League (NUL) and its citizens’ council pursued different strategies to address the issues. Throughout the Second World War, the Hartford branch, led by Leroy Ramsdell, Isaac Cornwall, and N.P. Dotson, expressed a great deal of ambivalence about ways to resolve the housing issues black working people faced and instead focused more on securing the services of professional social workers and a New York field staff to relieve the situation. At the same time, NUL executive committee members saw issues of employment and child welfare facilities taking precedence over all other questions before them.14 Compounding the lack of adequate employment and housing opportunities was the lack of health care support that African Americans received from social welfare agencies in the Greater Hartford area. Black patients resented the high-handed, harsh, and condescending attitudes of American Red Cross (ARC) workers. Indeed, ARC nurses and clinics routinely denied services to sick and injured black working people in the city’s North End. The only medical facility in Hartford that provided care for black patients was the Mary Ogden Avery Convalescent Hospital, an institution maintained by Hartford Hospital and subsidized by the state of Connecticut. Perhaps the worst aspect of the city’s social welfare efforts made on behalf of black Hartford city dwellers was its lackluster rehabilitation policies and practices for African American residents with disabilities. In 1944, three agencies, the Connecticut Society for Crippled Children and Adults, the State Board of Education of the Blind, and the American School for the Deaf, provided rehabilitation services for black applicants. And after arriving in Hartford, Vasco Hale probably discovered that black veterans with disabilities could only expect to receive resources from the Larrabee Fund Association and the American Legion, as the Salvation Army Social Service Center and the Connecticut Society for Mental Hygiene regularly closed their doors to them.15 It is within the strictures of the racial practices of white Hartford residents and the fissures in the black struggles for freedom in the city that we can locate disability and how it informed the self-creative strategies waged by Vasco Hale. After arriving in the city, Hale joined the NAACP in December of 1947 eventually becoming the chairman of the membership committee a few years later. One of the chief responsibilities of the branch membership chairman at the time was to attract new activists to the organization and to communicate the association’s message to the general public. This required face-to-face meetings and a steady stream of correspondence that would drain the energies of most workers. But for the tall, powerful man in his middle thirties, Hale relished the challenge. Frequently, he would be seen going door-to-door throughout the neighborhoods of Hartford’s North End, trying to convince people to go down to the main headquarters that was located on Main Street and join the association. And at numerous organizational meetings and street rallies, Hale implored volunteers to expand the organization’s base to recruit members from all walks of life among the city’s population. “I do think that within a few years more that Hartford is going to be the leading Branch in New England in these respects,” Hale remarked at the time. He nearly got his wish. The branch grew rapidly under his leadership. In a few years, more than nine hundred blacks had joined the Hartford NAACP, making it the second 187

Robert F. Jefferson, Jr.

largest branch in the New England region. Practically unknown when he arrived in Hartford in 1946, Hale was elected branch president by January 1953.16 Hale’s presence and determination persuaded a cross-section of the city’s black population to enlist in the battle for change, many of whom were also relative newcomers to the struggle for equality. As the ex-GI walked the streets of the North End, he set in motion a campaign that involved hundreds of Hartford’s blacks to improve living conditions in the city. Under the general direction of Hale, dozens of World War II veterans and youth council workers spearheaded several mass meetings to protest against housing discrimination in the city. Throughout 1954 and 1955, he gathered two hundred people for a series of peaceful demonstrations outside of a project development area on Windsor Street. Walking under placards bearing the words, “Slums Must Go,” members of the youth council were later joined by other organizations urging action. In May, their direct action strategies resulted in a series of constructive gatherings with the Greater Hartford Housing Authority concerning the problems that blacks faced when seeking adequate housing in the city. At the same time, Hale worked quietly behind the scenes with members of the Citizens Committee of the North End and other civic organizations to improve the living and social conditions of African Americans in Hartford.17 While it was within his personality to deflect praise, one of the members of the association was especially awed by his presence and organizational skills at the time: “the fact that he braved the winter cold to picket a rent gouging landlord was an important morale builder. The picket line that he constructed was deliberately conceived because the only weapon we possessed in the absence of rent controls or other legal prohibitions was public exposure of these reprehensible practices and Mr. Hale knew this.”18 At the same time, there were other civic activities Hale engaged in during this period that draw direct attention as to how he folded issues of disability into civil rights action. In 1950, the ex-GI joined the Connecticut chapter of the Blinded Veterans Association (BVA), and he and other members worked diligently to improve the living conditions of sightless veterans who lived in the area. Not long afterwards, his work on behalf of veterans and African Americans in the city attracted the attention of many others, including the Tau Iota Chapter of the Omega Psi Phi Fraternity, Incorporated. In 1952, members of the fraternity honored Hale with its most distinguished award given to individuals who tackled public health issues affecting black and white veterans living in the state. Hale continued to work with the Connecticut BVA on securing benefits for blinded veterans throughout the period, rising to the position of state chairman in 1953.19 Thus, Hale’s experiences in Hartford and throughout Connecticut and the stories of the grace he exhibited under pressure during the early 1950s provide ample evidence of how disability transformed the thinking of his contemporaries at the time. For them, disability rights and the civil rights struggle were not to be separate from each other but synonymously linked together in the fight for equal access to freedom and opportunity. Hale’s strategy of civic engagement and his struggles for dignity within the NAACP may have reached its high water mark by 1956. Despite his efforts to maintain a holding operation for the NAACP in the greater Hartford community, the number of members in the association began to dip far below the goal of twelve hundred established by the branch leadership for 1957. In 1958, he wrote that “with much regret that we can report only 276 members. I shall not attempt to give any reason other than we have fallen down on the job here.” Throughout the rest of 1959 and 1960, the registration campaigns waged by the branch failed to attract new young workers into its fold. Not until the Civil Rights Movement of the late 1960s would the registration drives produce a substantial yield of black activists among the city residents. Frustrated and feeling overworked, in 1958, Hale declined the branch committee chairmanship citing health concerns. And by 1961, years of fighting the ravages of his war-born injuries forced him to the periphery of Hartford politics forever.20 188

“The Veterans’ Angle”

In 1961, Hale moved to Tucson, Arizona, where he lived in relative obscurity until his death forty years later. But he continued to support various civic causes as a member of the local branch of the NAACP and gave numerous lectures on topics relating to African American history at the Prince Chapel African Methodist Episcopal Church. In 1980, West Virginia State University awarded Hale for his role in the school’s development of its intercollegiate sports programs by inducting him into its Hall of Fame. Among those applauding his towering achievement during the fall of that year were former members of the Blinded Veterans Association; the Hartford branch of the NAACP; the Omega Psi Phi Fraternity, Incorporated; and the Hartford North End Citizens Committee. All of these groups continued to pay tribute to the “Veterans’ Angle” that Hale exhibited and to honor his commitment to realize a world where fear and prejudice toward difference would be a distant but not forgotten past.21 As Vasco Hale’s life-struggles in Hartford demonstrate, African American history and Civil Rights Movement studies will remain incomplete if we do not consider the ways in which black people with disability and issues of disability have shaped the boundaries of the freedom struggles in the pre-Brown versus Topeka Board of Education era. Furthermore, the recovery of “undistinguished” individuals like Vasco Hale helps us to move closer to new ways of interpreting race and disability in African American society and how they empowered themselves and their communities in the years that followed WWII. The identities of African Americans with disabilities must intersect with gender, race, and class concepts in ways that render a more complex reading of black life in northern and southern, eastern and western, and urban and rural contexts throughout these periods. Vasco Hale saw himself not just as a man, a black man, and a person with disabilities but simultaneously occupying all of those subject positions. And as his story suggests, the attitudes and behavior exhibited by wounded ex-GIs like Hale and the parts of self they chose to background and foreground in private and public life was predicated upon how disability was socially constructed in post-World War II American life and how understandings of disability changed over time. Finally, by examining the self-creative activities of wounded ex-GIs like Vasco Hale, we not only gain a fuller understanding of how disability history shaped the social calculus that informed American society, but also how that history might provide us with critical sites for revising the portrait that we now have of strategies of resistance altogether.

Notes 1 President’s Report for Year 1948, January 1 until December 31st, Hartford Branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, January 5, 1949, NAACP Papers, Hartford Branch Files, NAACP Records, 1940–1955, Group II, Box C24, Folder: 1948–1950, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, DC. 2 Vasco D. Hale, 201 Career File, Military Personnel Records, National Personnel Records Center, Saint Louis, MO. 3 “Blind Amputee Uses Artificial Hand in Weaving,” The Hartford Daily Courant, August 17, 1946; “Blind Veteran’s Work Is Remarkable at College, Studies by Audiograph,” Hartford Courant, May 11, 1947, 1; Jean P. Dietz, “Blind, Handless B. U. Student Headed for a Master’s Degree,” The Boston Globe, January 4, 1948, 6-A. 4 “Disability No Handicap; Blind Without Hands, Vet Earns Master’s,” Baltimore Afro-American, September 18, 1948, 3. 5 Gerold J. Demeusky, “Disabled Veteran Who Lost Eyes, Hand in Blast Now Learning to Help Others,” Hartford Daily Courant, December 21, 1948, 20. 6 B. M. Phillips, “He Didn’t Give Up,” Baltimore Afro-American, October 30, 1948, B3. 7 Please bear in mind that these findings are based on a number of sources, including letters, correspondence, and newspapers culled from the Connecticut State Library Archives, the Thomas J. Dodd Research Center at the University of Connecticut, the Sterling Memorial Library at Yale University, and the Library of Congress.

189

Robert F. Jefferson, Jr. 8 National Urban League, “A Review of the Social and Economic Conditions of the Negro Population of Hartford, Connecticut,” (New York: National Urban League, 1944), 4, 9; Howard G. Brunsman, 1950 Population Census Report, Volume III, Chapter 23, Census Tract Statistics: Hartford, Connecticut and Adjacent Area, Selected Population and Housing Characteristics (Washington, DC: USGPO, 1952), Table 1Characteristics of the Population, By Census Tracts—1950, 7. 9 National Urban League, “A Review of the Social and Economic Conditions of the Negro Population of Hartford, Connecticut,” 23. 10 Ibid., 27–32. 11 Joseph A. Owens, “Hartford’s First Lady Cop,” Baltimore Afro-American, March 21, 1953, 22c; “F.E.P.A. Produces Results in First Year,” Connecticut Inter-Racial Survey 4, No. 2 (Fall 1948): 4. 12 For examples, see George Lipsitz, A Life in the Struggle: Ivory Perry and the Culture of Opposition (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1988); John Dittmer, Local People: The Struggle for Civil Rights in Mississippi (Champaign: University of Illinois Press, 1995); Thomas J. Sugrue, Sweet Land of Liberty: The Forgotten Struggle for Civil Rights in the North (New York: Random House, 2008); A few notable exceptions include Ralph Pearson, “Interracial Conflict in Twentieth Century Connecticut Cities: The Demographic Factor,” Connecticut History 17 (January 1976); especially see Stacey Close, “Fire in the Bones: Hartford’s NAACP, Civil Rights and Militancy, 1943–1969,” The Journal of Negro History 86, No. 3 (Summer, 2001): 228–263. 13 See Paul K. Longmore and Lauri Umansky, eds., The New Disability History: American Perspectives (New York: New York University Press, 2001); Douglas Baynton, “Disability History: No Longer Hidden,” Reviews in American History 32, No. 2 (June 2004): 282–292; David Baynton, “Slaves, Immigrants, and Suffragists: The Uses of Disability in Citizenship Debates,” PMLA 120, No. 2 (March 2005): 562–567; David Gerber, ed., Disabled Veterans in History (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan, 2002). 14 Memorandum, Warren Banner to Lester Granger, March 6, 1944, Subject: Conference in Hartford Regarding Proposed Study; Housing Conference, Hartford Housing Authority, November 1, 1944, National Urban League Papers, Manuscript Division, Washington, DC. 15 National Urban League, Department of Research and Community Projects, A Report on the Social and Economic Conditions of the Negro Population of Hartford, Connecticut, 1944 typescript (New York: New York Public Library, 1978). 16 Gerold J. Demeusky, “Disabled Veteran Who Lost Eyes, Hand in Blast Now Learning to Help Others,” The Hartford Courant, November 21, 1948, D 20; Letter, Anne T. Weston to the NAACP National Office, June 15, 1948, NAACP Papers, Hartford Branch Files, NAACP Records, 1940–1955, Group II, Box C24; Letter, Gloster B. Current to Vasco D. Hale, January 22, 1953, Hartford Branch Files, Folder: 1951–1953, all in Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.; “NAACP Makes Awards in Membership Drive,” The Hartford Courant, January 3, 1954, A-11. 17 Letter, Hartford Branch NAACP Secretary Gwen Reed to NAACP Director of Branches Gloster B. Current, May 21, 1954, Minutes, Monthly Meeting, Hartford Branch of the NAACP, March 3, 1954; Minutes, Monthly Meeting, Hartford Branch of the NAACP, May 5, 1954, Hartford Branch Files, Folder: 1951–1955, NAACP Records, all in Group II, Box C25, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. 18 Minutes, Hartford Branch of the NAACP, February 13, 1956, Papers of the NAACP, Supplement to Part 5, Residential Segregation, General Office Files, 1956–1965, eds. John Bracey and August Meier (Bethesda, MD: University Publications of America, 1995), reel # 9; Connecticut State Commission on Civil Rights, Civil Rights Bulletin 1, No. 1 (March 1957); 1958 Annual Report, Hartford NAACP Connecticut Branch Files, Folder: 1956–1963, NAACP Records, Group III, Box: C18, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. 19 “Vasco Hale Honored for Work with the NAACP,” The Hartford Courant, November 20, 1952, 18; “Blinded Veterans to Hold Annual Picnic Saturday,” The Hartford Courant, August 26, 1953, 2. 20 Letter, Vasco D. Hale to Membership Secretary Lucille Black, January 4, 1957; Letter, Vasco D. Hale to NAACP Membership Secretary Lucille Black, June 20, 1958, Branch Files, Folder: 1956–1963, NAACP Records, Group III, Box: C18, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.; “Blind Veteran to be Honored by Blood Donors,” The Hartford Courant, June 24, 1961, 9. 21 “Official of NAACP to Speak Here,” Tucson Daily Citizen, November 26, 1969, 3; “Prince Chapel Sets Negro History Week,” Tucson Daily Citizen, February 25, 1965, 8; “West Virginia Sports Hall of Fame Started,” The Stinger: A Magazine for West Virginia State College Alumni and Friends 9, No. 2 (Spring 1981): 8; Curiously, Vasco Hale had a rather complicated relationship with his alma mater throughout the postWorld War II period. For example, while West Virginia State College had named Hale as its alumnus of the year in 1945, the university knew next to nothing about his Hartford, Connecticut, activities until he answered an alumni newsletter’s call for former graduates thirty-five years later.

190

17 THE POLITICAL, THE PERSONAL, AND THE COLD WAR Harry Truman and Executive Order 9981 Geoffrey W. Jensen

When studying Harry Truman’s decision to racially desegregate the American military, we should not shortchange his social maturation, a process that began during his time as a senator, out of a desire to reach a desensitized and skeptical viewpoint that alludes solely to political rationales for his actions.1 Conversely, we must certainly remain wary of relying solely on the hyperbolic interpretation of the president offered by Clark Clifford, one of Truman’s principal presidential advisors, who observed that “The wonderful, wonderful development in those years was Harry Truman’s capacity to grow.” When we wade into the morass of Truman’s messy and complex past, which was full of contradictions and revelations, it becomes clear that he lacked a neat and tidy solitary moment that explains, fundamentally and unequivocally, how and why he changed on the issue of race. The evidence suggests that his decision revolved around a copious array of justifications. It was certainly not an easy choice for him. Embracing a new outlook required him to abandon the social norms of his upbringing and the deep-seated beliefs of the southern wing of the Democratic Party.2 And yet, it was a decision that Truman never regretted or recanted. In this chapter, I synthesize past historical studies of the president in order to offer a more nuanced examination of his decision, one reliant on political, personal, and Cold War rationales, to racially integrate the military by way of executive action. Executive Order 9981, though not always as swift or encompassing as many civil rights crusaders wished at the time, proved to be far more than the simple racial desegregation of combat forces, but the beginning of the transformation of the American military establishment, which as a by-product, contributed, in no small manner, to the larger Civil Rights Movement of the era.3 Whether seeking election as a senator or later as president, Truman appreciated the growing power of the black vote. And though he felt that it was not possible to legislate equality, he believed in equality of opportunity. Indeed, during his 1940 senatorial reelection bid, he informed a Sedalia, Missouri, crowd that he believed “in the brotherhood of man, not merely the brotherhood of white men but the brotherhood of all men before the law.” “I believe,” he continued, “in the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence. In giving the Negroes the rights which are theirs we are only acting in accord with our own ideals of a true democracy.” His words proved more than the hokum of a political candidate seeking safe passage into office. Senator Truman remained true to his word. He later investigated incidents of racial prejudice toward African American soldiers at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, fought against the poll tax that disfranchised black voters, and battled the practice of lynching that intimidated and murdered 191

Geoffrey W. Jensen

them. Though he achieved limited success, Truman’s championing of civil rights reform before he became president established a track record, though it did not always match their expectations, with African American voters.4 Still, the president’s maturation process on the issue proved less than charming, and it often dipped into the horrifically insensitive language of his region. “Harry is no more for nigger equality than any of us,” his younger sister, Mary Jane, boastfully declared to biographer and former Truman staffer, Jonathan Daniels. She had not misread him; Mary Jane viewed her older brother, much as she did herself and others, as a willing disciple of the racial zeitgeist of their hometown of Independence, Missouri, where African American citizens faced the gross and often harsh realities of Jim Crow racial segregation. For a time, Truman differed little from others in the region as he displayed a great propensity for, and willingness to use, the colloquial, albeit terribly racist, terms of the day to express his personal misgivings about racial groups. “I think one man is as good as another so long as he’s honest and decent and not a nigger or a Chinaman,” a young Truman once flatly remarked to his wife, Bess, during their courtship.5 Biographer Alonzo Hamby, however, detected a change in Truman on the issue of race around the time of the Second World War. For Hamby, it was a matter of “sensitivity.” On a minute level, Truman began to use the socially accepted term “negroes” to refer to black constituents, and as observed, he became an active advocate in his era for civil rights and often tied them to the responsibilities and requirements of a democratic society. It is also plausible that he acted on the issue because of his appreciation of their military service to the nation. During the Great War, Capt. Harry S. Truman of the Missouri National Guard experienced firsthand the blood and mud of the Western Front. The experience made him more sensitive to the loss of life that accompanied warfare and developed within him a great appreciation for those that served their country. In the fall of 1946, Walter White, head of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP); representatives from the American Federation of Labor (AFL); the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO); and various religious groups met with Truman. Deluged with several stories about the racist treatment that American minorities faced, it had been black World War II veteran Isaac Woodard’s sad tale that most deeply affected the president. After three years of service including a fifteen-month stint in the South Pacific where some of the most brutal fighting of the war took place, Sergeant Woodard, recently discharged, boarded a bus bound for home. While on his journey, a white bus driver who had harassed the black veteran throughout the trip informed the police chief of Batesburg, South Carolina, Lynwood Lanier Shull, that Woodard had been “drunk and disorderly.” Upon hearing the news, Shull promptly arrested Woodard, who vigorously pleaded that he had not been drinking. In response, the police chief savagely beat, blinded, and incarcerated the veteran. Startled by the account, Truman exclaimed: “My God! I had no idea it was as terrible as that! We’ve got to do something!” Soon after, he dispatched a memo to Attorney General Tom Clark. In it, the president observed, “I have been very much alarmed at the increased racial feeling all over the country and I am wondering if it wouldn’t be well to appoint a commission to analyze the situation and have a remedy to present to the next Congress—something similar to the Wickersham Commission on Prohibition.” He also supported the Attorney General’s decision to prosecute Shull. Though a noble effort, the Justice Department’s effort failed to sway the all-white jury in Columbia, South Carolina, who subsequently exonerated Batesburg’s chief of police in less than half an hour.6 Though not the most sonorous voice of his era, the president’s desire to address civil rights proved to be more than simply a politician pandering to black voters out of his own personal pursuit of political glory. In the wake of the failed prosecution of Shull, Truman decided that he had to go further. That decision partly relied on his personal convictions about military service: “But my very stomach turned over when I learned that Negro soldiers, just back from overseas, were being 192

Harry Truman and Executive Order 9981

dumped out of army trucks in Mississippi and beaten. Whatever my inclinations as a native of Missouri might have been, as President I know this is bad. I shall fight to end evils like this.” Understanding that he faced stiff resistance from a conservative Congress, the president opted instead for executive action, a decision that he would later be forced to repeat. On December 5, 1946, he issued Executive Order 9808, which established the President’s Committee on Civil Rights. The president believed it was the intrinsic duty of the federal government to protect the rights of all of its citizens, and during the first meeting of the group, he demanded action: “I want our Bill of Rights implemented in fact. We have been trying to do this for 150 years. We are making progress,” Truman recognized, “but we are not making progress fast enough. This country could very easily be faced with a situation similar to the one with which it was faced in 1922.” The president was referring to the second-coming of the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) in the 1920s. Composed of millions of Protestant middle class white men, the Klan targeted those groups, African Americans, Catholics, Jews, and elites, they believed responsible for threatening their racist weltanschauung. In their warped view, their enemies’ deliberate challenge to the dominance of white men was at the root of the world’s problems. It was the president’s belief that the 1920’s KKK, the actions of Lynwood Lanier Shull toward Isaac Woodard, and those who later led the communist witch-hunts in America had all been cut from the same cloth. They all trampled on the Bill of Rights.7 As the Committee on Civil Rights worked in the backdrop, Truman, in a speech that smacked of racial liberalism from a southern Democrat, an unexpected development given his heritage, became the first American president to address the NAACP. The chief executive explained that he sought to transform the government into an active defender of civil rights: “The extension of civil rights today means, not protection of the people against the Government, but protection of the people by the Government. We must make the Federal Government a friendly, vigilant defender of the rights and equalities of all Americans.” Politically, it is clear that the president had to act. To do so required Truman to disregard racist rhetoric from many old friends and supporters. Indeed, had he taken the advice of his longtime friend Ernie Roberts of the Faultless Starch Company to “let the South take care of the Niggers, which they have done, and if the Niggers do not like the Southern treatment, let them come to Mrs. Roosevelt,” it would have led to his political ruin in 1948 against Thomas Dewey. Truman needed to secure African American support from Dewey while also purloining any momentum reaped by former Vice President Henry Wallace, whose liberalism far exceeded the president’s. While critical to his fortunes, getting the black vote was not, however, the sole reason he acted. In a private moment with his sister before the speech, Truman, though some hesitation still lingered, understood the gesture before the NAACP to be the right path for himself and the nation: “I’ve got to make a speech to the Society for the Advancement of Colored People tomorrow and I wish I didn’t have to make it . . . Mamma won’t like what I say because I wind up quoting old Abe. But I believe what I say and I’m hopeful we may implement it.”8 As historian Mary Dudziak has observed, the pervasive nature of the early Cold War also compelled Truman to consider the disastrous outcome that American racism had on the image of the republic. Throughout the contest’s entirety, the Soviet Union effectively utilized racial injustice in America as a way to curry the favor of the non-white citizens of the developing world. In an interview with Jonathan Daniels for The Man of Independence, the president, in his own colloquial way, recognized the detrimental effect non-action had on the nation: “The Top Dog in a world which is over half colored ought to clean his own house.” In a speech before the Fair Employment Practices Committee (FEPC), then acting Secretary of State, Dean Acheson, echoed the sentiments of his chief, “we are reminded over and over by some foreign newspapers and spokesman, that our treatment of various minorities leaves much to be desired.” “I think it is quite obvious . . .”, he added, “that the existence of discriminations against minority groups in the United States is a handicap in 193

Geoffrey W. Jensen

our relations with other countries.” The message emanating from the West Wing during the president’s NAACP address was that civil rights reform had remained important but not solely for the social well-being of the African American community. But instead because the president believed it was also a powerful ideological statement, and therefore a weapon in America’s war to halt the spread of global communism. “In order to earn the support of the downtrodden of the globe,” the president had told his NAACP audience, “our case for democracy should be as strong as we can make it. It should rest on practical evidence that we have been able to put our own house in order.”9 Composed of a collection of white and black professionals, The President’s Committee on Civil Rights produced To Secure These Rights. The work was a comprehensive examination of American race relations that emphasized that the federal government possessed the power to redress rampant discrimination against all minorities. It outlined four fundamental rights that all Americans possessed: “the right to safety and security of the person . . . the right of citizenship and its privileges . . . the right to freedom of conscience and expression . . . and the right to equality of opportunity.” During their review of American society, they paid particular attention to the military, which in their opinion had historically served as a bastion of racism that perpetually humiliated the African American community. A recent precedent, though, offered a promising alternative. Desperate for manpower, Army leadership during the Battle of the Bulge created partially integrated companies made up of all black platoons who served next to all white ones; ultimately, these group intermingled and intertwined as a result of the tide of battle. It proved to be a positive social experiment with little racial animosity or incidents between the participants. Intrigued, the Army petitioned the opinions of those white officers and enlisted men involved. Their findings appeared in ETO-82. The report indicated that practical experience trumped past racial concerns on the combat abilities of African American soldiers. As one white southern sergeant involved recalled: “When I heard about it I said I’d be damned if I’d wear the same shoulder patch they did. After that first day when we saw how they fought I changed my mind. They’re just like any of the other boys to us.” Eager for a broader sampling, the Army solicited the opinions of 1,710 non-commissioned whites not involved with the creation of the integrated force. They discovered that the more isolated whites were from blacks, the less they trusted or wanted to work with them. These results challenged a system that relied upon the notion that black and white soldiers could not fight efficiently together. Some within the Army embraced its potential as a catalyst for reform, while others remained politically wary of it, and sought to bury its findings rather than release them. A later group, known as the Gillem Board, plunged into the issue further, and while proving appreciative of the value of African American soldiers, they maintained the prevailing milieu of racial segregation. Siding with tradition and conservatism, Secretary of the Army, General George C. Marshall buried ETO-82.10 When the President’s Committee politically exhumed ETO-82, they used the controversial report to support their findings in To Secure These Rights. Most importantly, the committee noted that the military had served as a social laboratory that offered the promise of an integrated future: During the last war we and our allies, with varying but undeniable success, found that the military services can be used to educate citizens on a broad range of social and political problems. The war experiences brought to our attention a laboratory in which we may prove that the majority and minorities of our population can train and work and fight side by side in cooperation and harmony. We should not hesitate to take full advantage of this opportunity. Other reasons for social reform such as humanitarianism and economics also emerged, but above these was the ever-present Cold War. Historian Jonathan Rosenberg contends that civil rights 194

Harry Truman and Executive Order 9981

leaders were aware of the calamity that American racism caused the nation, and sought to use the specter of it to influence those whites in power to support their reform agenda. It is apparent that the president’s committee followed this same course of action. No less devoted than their white counterparts over the issue, they seized the opportunity to use the specter of global communism to goad an already sensitive president and an unwilling nation toward integration. “We cannot escape the fact that our civil rights record has been an issue in world politics,” the Committee informed Truman. “The world’s press and radio are full of [examples of] it . . . .Those with competing philosophies have stressed—and are shamelessly distorting—our shortcomings. They have not only tried to create hostility toward us among specific nations, races, and religious groups. They have tried to prove our democracy an empty fraud, and our nation a consistent oppressor of underprivileged people.” In the conclusion of their report, the Committee suggested a series of possible reforms that included the integration of the armed forces and the call for further civil rights reform through Congressional legislation.11 Truman used a great many of their recommendations as the basis for his civil rights address before Congress; thereby placing the office of the president squarely in the eye of a political storm during an election year. While a cacophony of criticism emanated from the South, the president attempted to undertake a triumphant narrative, one that recalled the heritage of the nation’s earliest immigrants, those who had abandoned their homelands in search of freedom, opportunity, and equality, in his justification for racial reform. As a result of these early pioneers’ efforts, Truman mused, “the American people enjoy more freedom and opportunity than ever before.” But not all enjoyed that privilege as continued racial prejudice toward the African American community prohibited the full promise of the nation’s democratic ethos. “The protection of civil rights,” he suggested, “begins with the mutual respect for the rights of others which all of us should practice in our daily lives.” Though he could not force citizens to accept one another socially, the president accepted the idea that the federal government had a “clear duty” to uphold the rights of all Americans. Following his Committee’s recommendations, Truman placed the lion’s share of that task on Congress. He requested the enactment of laws that ended lynching, protected the rights of voters, created a permanent Fair Employments Practices Commission, establish commissions in Congress and the Department of Justice that focused solely on civil rights issues, and create “a permanent Commission on Civil Rights” that advised future chief executives on civil rights matters.12 Politics aside, Truman, and later, his successors, never eluded the Cold War’s influence when it came to civil rights. He understood that in the high stakes game playing out between the two Cold War powers over the fate of the free world, the United States had to do better. “We know that our democracy is not perfect. But we do know that it offers freer, happier life to our people than any totalitarian nation has ever offered,” Truman informed Congress during his special address on civil rights. This was not enough. “If we wish to inspire the peoples of the world whose freedom is in jeopardy, if we wish to restore hope to those who have already lost their civil liberties, if we wish to fulfill the promise that is ours, we must correct the remaining imperfections in our practice of democracy.” This meant that the Congress had to pass his civil rights legislative package to not only rectify civil rights deficiencies in the country, but also ward off communist advances in the free world. Truman surmised, “We know the way. We need only the will.”13 But were the Americans willing? In retrospective, Truman’s civil rights program was audacious and threatened to tear apart the New Deal voting coalition during an election year. It not only attempted to introduce changes that the majority of the population had neither called for nor wanted, but it also pitted two members of that coalition against each other: white Southerners and urban black voters. While African Americans heralded the move, southern democrats proved ready to drive Truman’s campaign into the ground. Echoing the sentiment of many of 195

Geoffrey W. Jensen

his southern colleagues, Arkansas Gov. Ben Laney was of the opinion that “the South has its back to the wall, but I don’t think the south will take it lying down and I’m with that group.” Though Truman proved to be ambivalent to their threats, southern segregationists defected from the Democratic Party and formed the States Rights Party. The “Dixiecrats” goal was simple. Through the candidacy of J. Strom Thurmond, they hoped to split the southern Democratic vote, which would hinder the president’s election bid, while also preventing the election of the Republican civil rights advocate Thomas Dewey. With no clear-cut winner, the House of Representatives would decide the fate of the presidency. By maintaining a solid southern coalition, the Dixiecrats felt confident they could block either of the reform-minded candidates from the presidency. This would force Truman or Dewey to abandon their civil rights agendas, or it would lead to the rise of a compromise candidate whose reform program proved more socially and politically palatable to Southerners. While this drama unfolded, southern segregationists also threatened to vote down the Cold War economic recovery package for Europe, the Marshall Plan, as a way to demonstrate their displeasure with Truman’s civil rights program.14 Throughout the spring and early summer of 1948, the conservative eightieth Congress composed of southern segregationists and conservative Republicans remained intransigent on Truman’s civil rights program. As the administration groped for an acceptable solution to this impasse, a new development in Europe captured the attention of the president and the nation. On June 24, West German citizens and their allied protectors found their access to Berlin blocked by Soviet occupation forces. In response, the United States and its allies launched a humanitarian airlift that hoped to sustain those trapped behind the Iron Curtain. To protect that which became the Berlin Airlift, Truman publically rattled the atomic saber as he openly announced that he had provided England with B-29 bombers armed with atomic weapons.15 With this crisis unfolding in the backdrop, the president found himself in an unenviable position. The Cold War once again occupied a great deal of his focus and attention, yet he could ill-afford to ignore the growing resentment among civil rights leaders. To do so would likely exacerbate the situation and threaten their political support of him. The lackadaisical nature of the “Do nothing Congress,” along with the president’s inability to move forward, energized the efforts of longtime civil rights stalwart A. Phillip Randolph, the head of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters. No stranger to Washington politics, Randolph had squared off against Franklin D. Roosevelt over the issue of military desegregation during the Second World War. During the Truman era, the potential of the president’s proposed Universal Military Training (UMT) initiative intrigued him. Designed to lessen the need of the military on American society, UMT required all young men aged eighteen to twenty to perform a year’s worth of military training. While not forced to serve in the armed forces, citizens taking part in this endeavor would establish a pool of available soldiers for whenever the next conflict arose. Randolph recognized that UMT provided an opportunity to drive forward the prospect of racial desegregation. He sought, therefore, to have an anti-segregation provision attached to the UMT bill working its way through Congress. It was not to be. Out of a desire to avoid challenging the powerful southern representatives in Congress who would eviscerate any attempt to use the military in this fashion, the Army balked at the inclusion of an anti-segregation clause as part of the bill. In spite of his failed effort with UMT, Randolph remained a dogged presence. In the not so distant past, he had utilized the threat of black civil disobedience to achieve results with Roosevelt. If it worked with FDR, perhaps it would work with Truman. Indeed, Randolph tried the familiar tactic in a March meeting with the president, when he warned “that Negroes are in no mood to shoulder a gun for democracy abroad so long as they are denied democracy here at home. In particular they resent the idea of fighting or being drafted into another Jim Crow army.”16 196

Harry Truman and Executive Order 9981

Sensing the palpable resentment emanating throughout the African American community and the unrelenting resistance in Congress, Clark Clifford, the chief executive’s lead consul, decided that the time had come for an executive order on the matter. That it remained possible to do so owed greatly to Congress’s decision to follow historical protocol and allow the president and the various leaders of the armed services to establish the racial guidelines of the military. The task to construct the order fell to Philleo Nash, a White House civil rights advocate that had long championed the cause of racial desegregation of the military. The result of his handiwork emerged on July 26, 1948, when Truman issued Executive Order 9981. The order stated, “It is hereby declared to be the policy of the President that there shall be equality of treatment and opportunity for all persons in the armed services without regard to race, color, religion or national origin.” On the one hand, it seemed that the armed forces of the nation were destined to integrate. On the other hand, the ambiguous nature of the order proved a savvy move that did not clearly state that the military would integrate, which allowed a political out for the president. Furthermore, it did not provide a timetable for change. While electoral considerations likely played a role in the former, the latter was the result of Secretary of Defense James Forrestal’s influence on Clifford. Forrestal believed that the universal desegregation of the armed forces was a non-sequential undertaking, as the various branches of the military operated largely in an independent and unique fashion. What worked in the Navy, for example, would not work in the Army, he reasoned. Perhaps this reflected Forrestal’s racial gradualism, but it remains equally plausible that his sagacious attitude demonstrated the hesitancy of an official that had lost favor with the president. During this time, Truman had openly questioned the defense secretary’s loyalty and judgment. As the military’s primary civilian handler, it is further probable that Forrestal anticipated that the end of segregation would not come unchallenged within the ranks, which would lead to delays. Whatever the case may be, Clifford accepted the defense chief ’s opinion and omitted any mention of a deadline from the order.17 Regardless, the ambiguity of Truman’s order created a political firestorm within the black community. In an editorial in the African American newspaper, The Pittsburgh Courier, the imprecise nature of the order received heavy scrutiny. “Of the score of American nations the United States is the only one that persists in the wrong-headed and unnecessary policy of racial segregation in its armed forces, yet it is this country which assumes the leadership in carrying democracy to others.” Indeed, the editorial defiantly proclaimed, “the time has long passed for half-way measures.” Despite the order’s vague phrasing, and the concerns it created with African Americans, Truman wanted racial desegregation. Three days after issuing the order, a reporter queried, “Mr. President . . . does your advocacy of equality of treatment and opportunity in the Armed Forces envision eventually the end of segregation?” In response, the president, a man raised in the shadow of southern racism, said, “Yes.” He also wanted accountability on the issue. In order to obtain it, he created the President’s Committee on Equality of Treatment and Opportunity in the Armed Services. Better known as the Fahy Committee, named after the chair of the body, Charles Fahy, it investigated the armed services and sought alternatives to any and all practices that prevented the implementation of Executive Order 9981. The president furthermore expected the Secretary of Defense and the respective heads of the armed forces to remedy any grievances or shortcomings.18

Conclusion In response to Ernie Roberts’s admonishing him for his civil rights stand, Truman chastised his old friend and the American South alike: “they are living eighty years behind the times and the sooner they come out of it the better it will be for the country and themselves.” Returning to his personal beliefs, he added, “I am not asking for social equality, because no such thing exists, 197

Geoffrey W. Jensen

but I am asking for equality of opportunity for all human beings and, as long as I stay here, I am going to continue that fight.” In spite of his efforts, the president’s order failed to instantaneously redress the racial composition of the armed forces. While reform proved swifter, in some regards, for the Navy and the Air Force, the Fahy Committee, in the months that followed, repeatedly entered into battle with newly appointed Secretary of Defense, Louis Johnson, and the more reticent and reluctant members of the armed forces: the Army and Marine Corps. Not until the maelstrom in Korea and the demand for manpower it created did both branches ultimately deem segregation outdated.19 Much like the Korean War, the fight to integrate the military outlasted Truman’s presidency. The scope and the political environment created by Executive Order 9981, however, expanded throughout the presidencies of Republicans and Democrats alike for the next two decades. This part of the order’s story, though, remains inexplicably absent from modern history textbooks and monographs of the larger Civil Rights Movement. Executive Order 9981 not only began the process of racial desegregation in the military, but its existence also aided in the integration of on-base schools before the Brown decision, the providing of integrated health care for African American soldiers and their families, and the desegregation of the Veteran’s Administration and the National Guard and reserves. All of which owe, in some part, to Truman’s order, an enterprise brought on by a host of rationales that proved to be his most enduring triumph, a social victory that transformed and ultimately transcended the American Armed Forces.

Notes 1 Aspects of this work first appeared in my dissertation. See Geoffrey W. Jensen, “It Cut Both Ways: The Cold War and Civil Rights Reform Within the Military, 1945-1968 (Ph.D. dissertation, University of Arkansas, 2009). Several historians have recently questioned aspects of Truman’s civil rights agenda, specifically his executive order desegregating the military, often interpreting them in a more critical light that shortchanges the man and the results. For example, Carol Anderson’s Eyes off the Prize (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 3, while tipping its cap to the effort of the president condemned his actions as “the politics of symbolic equality” and therefore, Truman failed to “come even close to what needed to be done.” Christine Knauer’s Let Us Fight as Free Men: Black Soldiers and Civil Rights (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2014), 53, deemed the president’s position on the matter to be “ambivalent”, while “his actions lagged behind his words.” Worse yet, though it fostered the potential for reform, “it did not result in decisive and far-reaching actions on behalf of black equal rights.”; See also, Geoffrey Jensen. Review of Knauer, Christine Let Us Fight as Free Men: Black Soldiers and Civil Rights. H-War, H-Net Reviews. November 2014. URL: www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=42375 2 A decision that later contributed, in part, to the eventual splitting of the party in the late 1940s, and again more viciously and permanently in the mid-to-late 1960s. 3 Clark Clifford quoted in David McCullough, Truman (New York: Simeon and Schuster, 1992), 589. 4 Truman speech in Sedalia quoted in Jonathan Daniels, The Man of Independence (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1998), 339. 5 Mary Jane Truman quoted in McCullough, 588, 53–54; Truman to Bess Truman quoted in Alonzo Hamby, Man of the People: A Life of Harry S. Truman (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998), 30. 6 Hamby, 272; Truman to White quoted in Walter White, A Man Called White: The Autobiography of Walter White (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1995), 331, 325–328, 330; Michael Gardner, Harry Truman and Civil Rights: Moral Courage and Political Risks (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 2002), 21–22; Truman ltr to Tom Clark, September 20, 1946, HST Library, Papers of Harry S. Truman, General File, Box 113, Negro file; DOJ Press Release on Isaac Woodard, September 26, 1946, HST Library, Papers of Philleo Nash, Box 45, Isaac Woodard File; “Federal vs. State Issue at S.C. Trial,” The Afro-American, November 9, 1946; “Police Chief Freed in Negro Beating,” The New York Times, November 6, 1946. 7 Truman and EO 9808 quoted in Gardner, 21, 20; Truman to the PCCR quoted in Harry S. Truman, Memoirs, vol. 2, Years of Trial and Hope, 1946–1952 (New York: Doubleday, 1956), 181, 269–273; Nancy MacLean, Behind the Mask of Chivalry: The Making of the Second Ku Klux Klan (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994), xi–xvii; Truman on racism toward Black Soldiers quoted in McCullough, 588.

198

Harry Truman and Executive Order 9981 8 Harry S. Truman, “Address Before the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People,” June 29, 1947. Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project, accessed on 6/18/15. www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=12686 (Hereafter referred to as Truman, “Address Before the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.”); Roberts to Truman quoted in Correspondence between Harry S. Truman and Ernie Roberts, HST Library, August 1948, President’s Secretary’s Files, Truman Papers; Gardner, 93; McCullough, Truman, 234, 247–248, 251; Randall B. Woods, Quest for Identity (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 24–25; Truman to Mary Jane Truman on NAACP Address quoted in Hamby, 433. 9 Truman, “Address Before the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.”; Truman to Daniels quoted in Daniels, 336; Dean Acheson remarks quoted in the Report of the President’s Committee on Civil Rights, To Secure These Rights (Washington: United States Government Printing Office, 1947), 146–147; Mary Dudziak, Cold War Civil Rights (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2000), 26–27, 80–81; Gardner, 34–36. 10 Southern Sergeant quoted in To Secure These Rights, 83, 6–9, 21–46, 82–87; For more on the specifics of individual rights, see Gardner, 50–61; Morris J. MacGregor Jr. and Bernard C. Nalty, eds., Blacks in the United States Armed Forces: Basic Documents, vol. 5 (Wilmington: Scholarly Resources, 1977), 518; Sherie Mershon and Steven Schlossman, Foxholes & Color Lines: Desegregating the U.S. Armed Forces (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998), 142–149, 164–165. 11 PCCR on social reform aspect of the military and on the international impact of domestic racism quoted in To Secure These Rights, 47, 147, see also, 40–46, 139–148; Jonathan Rosenberg, How Far the Promised Land? (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2006), 182–183; as noted, the civil rights community remained concerned about the effect American racism had abroad. In a statement before the PCCR, Walter White believed American racism caused irreparable “harm . . . to our national reputation.” See Walter White Statement to PCCR, HST Library, Philleo Nash papers, Box 194, PCCR Meeting Minutes [2], 205. 12 Harry S. Truman: “Special Message to the Congress on Civil Rights,” February 2, 1948. Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project, accessed on 6/18/15. www.presidency. ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=13006 (Hereafter referred to as Truman, “Special Message to the Congress on Civil Rights, February 2, 1948.”); To Secure These Rights, 79, 150, 162; according to historians Mershon and Schlossman, Truman did not include the desegregation recommendation because he planned, from the start, to integrate by way of Executive Orders. For more, see, Mershon and Schlossman, 167–168. 13 Truman, “Special Message to the Congress on Civil Rights, February 2, 1948.” 14 Ben Laney comments quoted in Mary Spargo, “Southerners Threaten Bolt on Race Issues,” Washington Post, 2/4/48; Gardner, 72; McCullough, 667; Kari Fredrickson, The Dixiecrat Revolt and the End of the Solid South, 1932–1968 (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2001), 140. 15 Woods, Quest for Identity, 48–52. 16 Randolph to Truman quoted in Paula F. Pfeffer, A. Phillip Randolph, Pioneer of the Civil Rights Movement (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1990), 138, 133, 137–146; Hamby, 368–369. 17 Forrestal’s actions deserve further examination. Historians should also consider his deteriorating mental health as part of his rationale for his decisions at the time. Shortly after his removal from office, the former defense chief tragically committed suicide. For more, see McCullough, 736–740; Clark Clifford, Counsel to the President: a Memoir (New York: Random House, 1991), 209–211. 18 Mershon and Schlossman, 167, 183–184, 187, 189; “The Order Mr. Truman Did Not Issue,” The Pittsburgh Courier, August 7, 1948; Truman’s comments on integration of the armed forces quoted in Harry S. Truman: “The President’s News Conference,” July 29, 1948. Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project, accessed on 6/18/15. www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ ws/?pid=12968 19 Truman’s response to Ernie Roberts quoted in Correspondence between Harry S. Truman and Ernie Roberts, HST Library, August 18, 1948, President’s Secretary’s Files, Truman Papers.

199

This page intentionally left blank

18 THE NAVY’S SEARCH FOR BLACK OFFICERS THROUGH ROTC AND THE EDGE OF INSTITUTIONAL CHANGE Isaac W. Hampton II This chapter will examine the condition of the Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC) and the challenges it faced in the late 1960s and into the mid-1970s. Particular attention will focus on the Navy ROTC program and the first one ever established at a historically black college and university (HBCU), Prairie View A&M University (PV)1, and the Navy’s minority Recruiting Command selection process for potential officers. The critical push and pull factors that influenced these events occurred during the twilight era of the Civil Rights Movement, the restructuring of the United States military after the phasing out of the draft, and the implementation of the All-Volunteer Force in July of 1973. From 1776 and into the 1960s, serving as a commissioned officer in the United States Armed Forces remained principally reserved for Americans of white European decent. African Americans had always desired to serve and defend the nation, but through the Second World War, they were mainly limited to combat support roles. Sadly, they had to fight for the right to be a part of the nation’s military, especially in the officer corps. The leadership of the armed force’s argument against the recruitment and training of black officers centered on its belief that no African American officer should be permitted to command white soldiers, sailors, airmen, or marines.2 Woodrow Wilson, a true visionary when it came to international affairs and the first U.S. president to have a Ph.D., led the country through World War I; however, he was no progressive or friend of African Americans when it came to the issue of racial reform. The president oversaw roughly twenty bills that supported racial segregation. This included the National Defense Act. Signed in 1916, it called for “the exclusion of [B]lacks from commissions in the army and navy.”3 This act also created the Student Army Training Corps (SATC) and the Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC). SATC’s mission was to take young men, educate them, and train them within a military structure. By 1919, SATC programs slowly restructured along the lines of today’s modern ROTC curriculum. The goal was that after a four-year period, cadets would graduate with a bachelor’s degree that included two years of basic training and two years of advanced military training.4 Less than two years after World War I, on April 4, 1920, the War Department made sweeping changes to curtail these detachments at all institutions that were not augmenting their cadets’ military experience. Reasons for this change stemmed from a reduction of training officers who oversaw ROTC programs and a lack of funding from the government. It was the university’s fiscal responsibility to hire competent military officers or faculty, whether discharged, retired, or held 201

Isaac W. Hampton II

a reserve status, to teach military science, drill, and ceremony to young cadets.5 In 1928, ROTC programs existed in more than two hundred twenty universities and approximately one hundred high schools and academies with nearly eighty-five thousand students.6 The endemic lack of funding of historically black colleges and universities placed them at a disadvantage compared to traditional White schools. This greatly affected their ability to have flourishing programs for their students and for their full institutional development as an oasis of higher learning. This lack of financial resources arrested HBCU’s ability to hire and pay their faculty, along with the inability to grow their campus infrastructure at the same level of traditional colleges. At least for Prairie View A&M University, the evidence was quite apparent as late as 1970, because even though it was a member of the Texas A&M University System, it still did not share in available university funds.7 In spite of this uneven playing field, PV achieved an appropriate level of institutional effectiveness, particularly in the Navy Reserve Officer Training Corps (NROTC) program. By 1974, it was the single largest source of commissioned black officers in the Navy. From 1970 to 1975, approximately forty-eight ensigns and Marine second lieutenants received their commissions. These graduates achieved a first term retention rate of ninety-two percent upon going on active or reserve duty, all were promoted with their peers, and five were selected for graduate degree programs.8 However, PV’s institutional success and environment conducive for Army and Navy ROTC to excel came not from the military, but from the top of the university’s leadership.

The Guiding Light Dr. Alvin I. Thomas, who helmed the university from 1966–1982, without question was one of the most influential presidents in the school’s history. Drafted into the Army during World War II, Thomas, a native of New Orleans, Louisiana, served in Europe, the Philippines, and Korea. This experience, like those of so many other young men of the Greatest Generation who fought in the War, changed Thomas’s life and shaped his views on the importance of how military service could serve as a positive foundation in young people’s lives. For these reasons, Thomas was a staunch advocate of ROTC at Prairie View. With racial segregation in full effect throughout the country on the eve of the Second World War, however, the military was no advocate for black equality. In 1941, the Marine Corps defiantly signaled to African Americas it wanted no Leathernecks of color when the commandant, Major General Thomas Holcomb, observed, “If it were a question of having a Marine Corps of 5,000 Whites or 250,000 Negroes, I would rather have the whites.”9 During all of World War II, the United States Marine Corps had no African American officers among the approximately nineteen thousand men of color (four percent of Marines) who served in the Corps during the war.10 During the Second World War, the Navy commissioned an infinitesimal number of sixty black officers through its V-12 Program, while approximately ninety-five percent of its black enlisted “were messmen derisively referred to as sea-going bottle washers.”11 However, this still does not explain the small number of Naval and Marine officers in the 1960s and early 1970s. The Marines and Navy had the smallest numbers of African American representation in their officer corps at one hundred sixty-seven black Marine officers compared to twenty-seven thousand whites in 1968.12 The Navy was nearly double this, but there were still only three hundred thirty black officers among eighty-two thousand three hundred whites that same year. By 1972, the Navy increased its black officer presence to six hundred ten in uniform, while the Marines had two hundred sixty-six.13 In the summer of 1967, plans were formulated and correspondence initiated for the establishment of an NROTC unit at an HBCU. Thomas submitted an application requesting the unit’s establishment at Prairie View. On December 15, 1967, the Secretary of 202

Navy’s Search for Black Officers

Defense announced that the Navy had approved a NROTC unit for the university. The Office of the Chief of Naval Operations (OPNAV) Notice 5450 dated March 12, 1968 was the official document that established the program at this campus. The program’s mission “was to select highly qualified young men and to train them, not only in Navy subjects but in the practicalities of leadership and broadening their knowledge of core subjects such as mathematics, the physical sciences, English, and world affairs. This aim mesh[ed] closely with the continuing effort of the college to upgrade student quality and performance.”14 On April 14, 1968, Captain Francis X. Brady and Commander Gerald E. Thomas became the first commanding officers of PV’s detachment, with the first group of thirteen officers commissioned on May 17, 1970.15 In 2005, Thomas stated ROTC served as “a national defense component of education. It was [created] to be sure that we had, for the nation, a basic officer training military unit that was available for war and that is how they were turning out these commissioned officers to give the nation that source of military manpower.”16 He indeed was aware of the larger picture of African American participation in the armed forces particularly at the officer level.17 In 1968, he and many other African American leaders struggled with the fact that blacks were serving and dying in disproportionate numbers in Southeast Asia in comparison to their national population levels by percentage. Collectively across the military, their numbers were just beyond microscopic concerning representation in the officer corps. African American officers had the highest representation in the Army, but their numbers never comprised more than four percent during the Vietnam War.18

NROTC Selection Process NROTC has a proud history that dates back to 1926. This program offered young men the opportunity to pursue careers as professionals in the United States Navy. The first schools to have NROTC were “the University of California at Berkeley, Georgia Institute of Technology, Northwestern University, University of Washington, Harvard and Yale Universities.”19 In 1973, over twenty-three thousand predominantly high school male seniors applied to colleges and universities that had NROTC Scholarship Programs. Of this number, just over nine thousand one hundred became finalists and required to report to their designated “Navy Recruiting District Headquarters for further processing.”20 The Navy’s goal in producing its next generation of leaders through Officers Candidate School, United States Naval Academy, or NROTC was to manufacture and mold young Americans into exceptionally proficient career men and women for the Marine Corps and Navy.21 The long journey for all applicants began with the completion of the NROTC “Background Questionnaire” battery, the “Strong Vocational Interest Blank Test,” and a subjective interview with two Navy officers that would determine if the applicant had the potential to be a career officer. In a memorandum to the selection committee, Rear Admiral Emmett H. Tidd, who was the Navy’s head of the Recruiting Command, explicitly directed members of selection boards not to disqualify candidates based on their performance during the initial interview process with Navy officers. Collectively this information along with high school transcripts and a reference questionnaire became the packet “the selection board” reviewed. During this stage, between seventeen to twenty-one percent of applicants were ineligible because of some kind of physical disqualification.22 Today’s Navy places a premium on NROTC candidates who pursue degrees in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM). The Navy of the 1970s sought out future officers that had similar aptitudes. Rear Admiral Tidd informed the NROTC selection board the Navy was growing in technical sophistication with its surface ships, nuclear submarines, and aircraft. With these advances in the force, the branch needed candidates who majored in engineering, physical science, or some type of mathematical science who could operate, repair, command, and fly some of the most technically advanced war machines of that time. This led the 203

Isaac W. Hampton II

selection board to provide special consideration to candidates who excelled in STEM academic disciplines. The Navy Recruiting Command set the goal for the NROTC freshman class of 1974 to have eighty percent of its students fall into a math and science background. The other twenty percent would come from majors in the social sciences, liberal arts, and business.23 The Chief of Naval Education and Training granted the final nomination of candidates into a NROTC program, a decision greatly informed and influenced by the work of a “selection committee” and “sub-committee.” The NROTC selection committee was confidential and made up of eighty members divided into twenty smaller committees. Each sub-committee had four members that had a senior Navy or Marine Corps officer, civilian educator, civilian minority member, and a junior naval officer. By the late 1960s, the Navy was particularly interested in changing its image of being the military’s worst service (although the Marines were a very close second by numerical ratio) for African Americans who wanted to be career officers. For this reason, the Navy began to target young black males for its NROTC program.24

Challenges to Minority Recruitment in NROTC In 1967, the Navy finally acknowledged it had a serious problem with recruiting black officers. It did not promote an African American to the rank of captain (0–6) until March 1966, a chaplain named Thomas D. Parham. That same year, the Navy sent thirty-eight thousand correspondences to high schools across the country in search of African Americans who might be interested in becoming officers. This included over three hundred recruiting visits to college campuses. Commander Reeves Taylor, an African American who chaired the Navy’s special study group on black officers, stated in an interview with Ebony magazine in 1968, “We [the Navy] know we have to change our image.”25 Internally, this image change had little staying power because four years later in 1972, race riots occurred aboard the USS Kitty Hawk (CVA-63), Hassayampa (AO-145) and Constellation (CVA-64). These incidents signaled racial tension was at an all-time high in the Navy. If the Navy did not have an image problem in 1972, it definitely had a racial tension problem after these incidents as far as the African American community was concerned. During this period, the Navy had the smallest number of black service personnel, but the most kinetic race riots. However, there were other reasons why some blacks turned away or pushed away from ROTC. First, up until 1968, the Navy had no interest in establishing a NROTC detachment at an HBCU. According to Navy historian John Sherwood, civil rights leaders purposely did not pressure this branch to reverse its course on its non-participation at HBCUs because they were apprehensive these institutions would continue to draw the finest African American midshipmen. This would in turn cement White segregationists’ argument that “separate but equal facilities were the best solution to the military’s minority recruitment problems.”26 Second, for the Black community the high casualty rate of African Americans in Vietnam from 1965–1969, which was disproportionate to their national population numbers, was a signal to many people of color that they were still little more than cannon fodder to America’s military. The third reason is pluralistic and complex and requires further analysis by future researchers. These reasons include, but are not limited to the following: the slow pace and lack of enforcement of laws created by the Civil Rights Movement; the failure of the Great Society that disillusioned a generation of African Americans that entered college from 1968 to 1978; and the influence of the Black Power movement that encouraged African Americans not to serve in the military or trust any arm of the white power structure. As a result, black Americans carried with them the mental baggage, real or imagined, that those outside of their battered communities were still challenging their strides toward total equality. 204

Navy’s Search for Black Officers

From the Navy Recruiting Command’s vantage point, minorities (blacks) on sub-committees ensured there would be rational discernment made when concerning a minority candidate’s suitability as officer material. Recruiting Command’s guidance was clear to its sub-committees concerning minorities who were not selected. Their 1974 protocols directed non-select minority candidates would fall in one of two areas on IBM cards: 1. Candidate is college material and would have been completely acceptable for midshipman status had more scholarships been available—ACCEPTABLE. 2. Candidate was definitely not college material and would not have been acceptable for midshipman status had more scholarships been available—UNACCEPTABLE.27 It is plausible that this emerging-computerized structure of categorization using IBM cards can trace its roots back to Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara’s “systems analysis.” Systems analysis “sought to reshape programs through rational, quantifiable decision making.”28 While this system certainly was not without flaws, the use of computers in Recruiting Command shows the Navy’s effort to track acceptable and unacceptable young men trying to enter NROTC. At any rate, NROTC entry qualifications challenged midshipmen of all races. It should come as no surprise that a baffling percentage would not complete the program.

Attrition, Disenrollment, and Retention In 1974, NROTC’s attrition was approximately twenty-eight percent. Five years prior to this in 1969, it was nearly forty percent. The Navy’s leadership reasoned these figures were no “indication of the quality or desirability” of the midshipmen who went on to complete their service commitment. In fact, a high degree of attrition endured based on the rigors of the NROTC program compared to students who were not interested in becoming military professionals.29 In all three avenues to commission, at minimum a one in three failure rate was the reality. As far as continuing one’s Navy career after the initial service period, those in NROTC were least likely to renew their contracts (see Table 18.1). With NROTC undesirably leading the attrition race, Recruiting Command wanted answers as to why forty percent of its midshipmen were leaving the program before completion. The various Table 18.1 Navy Enlisted Scientific Education Institution

Attrition Rate (1969)

Retention after Obligated Service

USNA NROTC NESEP

30–33 percent 40 percent 30.3 percent

65 percent 30 percent 90 percent

Source: Author created content based on Morris J. MacGregor, Jr., Integration of the Armed Forces 1940–1965 ( Washington, D.C.: Center of Military History United States Army 1981), 100. Note: Figures were not available for the Navy’s Officers Candidate School attrition rates during the research period for this chapter. In comparison to Officers Candidate School (OCS), the Navy like other branches of the armed services viewed this source of commissioning as an emergency measure that could be turned on and off as needed, but in the long run it did not want this agency to be the major source where its officer corps received their commissions from. Ironically, for the fiscal year of 1974, the highest number of Navy officers selected for “Commander rank[s]” had come through OCS. In fact, for this group they had a higher selection rate than both NROTC and Annapolis graduates. See Lyon, “Retention,” 9.

205

Isaac W. Hampton II

universities with these detachments did an excellent job in having students articulate why they were leaving NROTC, which greatly helped Recruiting Command get a better understanding of the situation.30 The following reasons proved the most prevalent by departing midshipmen as to why they quit the program: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7.

Decline or lack of aptitude, attitude, interest, and maturity. Pursuance of higher education or civilian employment. Emotionally unstable, anti-social, radical, and egotistical. Pacifist leanings. Conflict with family or peers. Draft exemption. Dissatisfaction with summer cruise or training.31

In any era, eighteen to twenty-one year olds frequently change their minds about what they want as they grow into mature adults. Except for number six in the examples above, all of these factors were still in play after 1973. Other reasons why students left these programs across Army, Air Force, and Navy ROTC were more problematical. A report prepared by the Air Force ROTC (AFROTC) Directorate of Education in 1973 suggested students who endured the rigors of ROTC gained confidence and compared themselves to their peers out of the ROTC. Many cadets and midshipmen began to perceive themselves as exceptional. This led these individuals to reconsider their career options that led to competition with a military career. With a significant portion of the American public suffering from fatigue with Vietnam, this is not surprising. Other reasons are linked to the 1960s and 70s anti-military view held among many Americans, a military life that was anything but liberal, family separations, physical control compared to the private sector, and non-competitive pay.32 Figures 18.1 and 18.2 highlight efforts by Navy Recruiting Command to track “Retention,” and specific reasons students left NROTC programs nationally from 1968–1969 and 1972–1973.

Figure 18.1 National NROTC Disenrollments by Year and Reason, 1968–1969.33

206

Navy’s Search for Black Officers

Figure 18.2 National NROTC Disenrollments by Year and Reason, 1972–1973.34

From 1968 to 1973, the majority of midshipmen left the program by their own choice. In 1968 and 1969 at the height of the Vietnam War, more midshipmen left the program than in 1973, when hostilities were winding down. During the 1973 meeting of the Association of NROTC Colleges, retention was a definite concern. That year national statistics indicated approximately twenty-eight percent, or nearly one in three, midshipmen left the program for at least one of the reasons listed in the previous figures. For the fiscal year of 1969, the attrition number was 33.9 percent.35 One of the factors that was not part of the analysis in the figures was the campus climate in the treatment of all ROTC students by not only non-ROTC students, but also the faculty. During the early and mid-1970s, this factor influenced young college men’s motivation to stay in an ROTC program. Sometimes civilian faculty was supportive of students who chose the patriotic path of wanting to become professional warriors through ROTC, NROTC and AFROTC. Other faculty members who were anti-military or anti-war could make life difficult for some students. This could range from verbal insults to lower grading. Many ROTC students believed some professors gave them a hard time simply because they were wearing a military uniform and desired to become part of the leadership in America’s Armed Forces. This was just another factor that could push ROTC students to leave the program, while encouraging others who had considered joining, for that matter, not to participate in it. According to a 1975 report written by Commander William R. Smith, USNR-R, who was teaching at the Texas A&M flagship campus in College Station, the majority of faculty at universities across the United States was not openly hostile to students who took on this added dimension of their college experience, but obviously, there were some.36 On most campuses during the 1960s and 1970s, the majority of ROTC students experienced a degree of isolation concerning various aspects of campus life compared to non-ROTC students. This isolation led to stereotyping of cadets as “squares” or conservatives; indeed, military students typically had more obligations because of their ROTC commitments, which further isolated many of them from other students because they did not have the time for other extracurricular or typical social activities that were a part of the college experience, only compounding the issue.

207

Isaac W. Hampton II

This attitude toward military personnel at the collegiate level permeated throughout the student body, but some faculty and administrators shared these beliefs as well, because they held deep suspicions of those in ROTC. Rejected from typical college activities,37 including not being invited to parties, into fraternities, and into social clubs that obviously had issues with anything remotely tied to the United States government, a number of ROTC students remained socially ostracized. This non-racial segregation occurred on the campuses of traditional white universities and historically black colleges. While this was not a crisis for NROTC, it was a concern and serious enough that the Navy developed an “Attitude Survey for Civilian Faculty Members on NROTC Campuses.” If implemented, the survey’s intent was to answer the following questions: Value of the program to students, quality of NROTC curriculum, knowledge of benefits of the program (financial, educational, career development, personal developments), acceptance of Professor Naval Science staff members on campus, uniforms and regimentation on campus, evaluation on NROTC student performance in classes, contributions of NROTC students to campus life, political attitudes related to NROTC objectives, interaction with NROTC students, knowledge of Navy as a profession, evaluation of political attitudes [for Liberals and Conservatives], knowledge of sea power facts.38 Sources for Army and Air Force ROTC programs were not under investigation for this research project, but it is likely they were considering a similar survey to improve their retention numbers. The survey questions, which were limited in scope, mainly focused on subjects that were out of the NROTC student’s control such as financial aid and subjective areas of the political attitudes of the professors and students. Questions that may have been more beneficial to the survey should have included those that took into consideration the social aspect and enjoyment factor that young students’ value in any college experience. Questions on the importance of comradery and being part of a military fraternity should have also been a part of this potential survey. One key experience for building teamwork for the entire midshipman community prior to their commissioning, was the summer cruise.

Summer Cruise The purpose of the summer cruise was to expose future officers to the aviation, submarine, surface ships, and Marine Corps amphibious operations. Students traveled all over the world on cruises at the Navy’s expense. These cruises would give midshipmen a better idea of what Navy and Marine life was really like beyond the classroom, sexy advertisement posters, and television commercials. Texas native Frank Jackson, a NROTC graduate in the class of 1973, recalled his and other midshipmen’s first time on an airplane was out to San Diego for their first summer cruise. PV sent five midshipmen, who because they were African American were quite noticeable in 1970, with the lack of blacks in this branch of the military. Jackson stated, “I almost got a ticket for jay walking because I had never been in a city by myself before. So, that was an experience. I stayed at the YMCA and left my orders in the room. It was crazy. But they had a bus out there that took us to the base on 32nd Street there in San Diego and I went aboard the U.S.S. Hole DDG13. That was my first ship.”39 While summer cruises were for training purpose, they were not without incident. One of the midshipmen from PV nearly lost one of his fingers during a drill because of the early removal of a cotter pin. The injury was so severe the tip of the midshipmen’s finger was amputated once the U.S.S. Hole made it to San Francisco. During this same cruise, Jackson’s ship also went to 208

Navy’s Search for Black Officers

Hawaii, where he and other NROTC students encountered midshipmen from the United States Naval Academy. In predicable Annapolis fashion, the midshipmen behaved as if their NROTC brethren, black or white, were a notch below them in quality and wanted little to do with them. Jackson recalled the midshipmen from Annapolis carried behavior that went beyond hazing and showed no professional decorum as future leaders in the Navy: [The] Hawaiian experience was something else because the midshipmen that came from ROTC units were there at the Oak Club when the ship from the naval academy came in, and those kids were real rowdy, and they looked down on us but we did not pay them any attention. We just kind of stayed clear of them. But they thought they were better than us, [we] being ROTC. So, while we were in the Officers Club having lunch, they decided to take all of our covers and all of our belongings that we had stored in the cubby hole right there at the entrance to the Officers Club and throw them in Pearl Harbor—just threw them in the damn bay. So, we came out looking for our caps and our bags . . . needless to say, we were ready to fight . . . You know, we were just getting ready to have a war up in there. And so, they stopped us at the door and told us to go back to the ship, that they would discipline those kids. They were all in their laughing. It was big fun to them. But we lost all our covers and everything because we could not retrieve them. They had sunk [in Pearl Harbor].40 In spite of this act of extreme hazing, Jackson felt his Hawaii cruise was a good experience. In addition to showing midshipmen occupations they might want to do on active duty, the summer cruises also gave them insight to work they did not want to do. During Jackson’s second summer cruise to Camp Pendleton, he and other midshipmen from PV spent a week with the Marines doing amphibious operations. Typical of the Marine rifleman, midshipmen wore backpacks, carried M-16 rifles, ate K-rations, and dug foxholes in the sand to sleep in at night “that was as hard as concrete,” according to Jackson.41 During the beach assault exercise, midshipmen rode inside of cramped amphibious assault vehicles. Jackson recalled: When they opened up the track, you stepped out of the track thinking you were going to have a bottom and there was no bottom under your feet, so you sink . . . And you say, oh, this is crazy—I am a sitting duck, coming in from this [track]. This is not the way to do it . . . I realized then I did not want to be a Marine.42 For Jackson and many other midshipmen this was a reality check. A brush with military life beyond the classroom and exposure to the hazards and challenges of it. For some, this was the ultimate patriotic calling. For others, it was either a pleasant distraction away from college or a harbinger that this was not the profession the Navy’s marketing and recruiting officers had drummed it up to be.

Conclusion In the late 1960s and into the 1970s, the Naval ROTC program at Prairie View A&M proved an exemplary and popular example amongst many students of the university during a time when ROTC programs across the country faced negative criticism as the unpopular war in Vietnam wound down. While other universities were being shamed for their anti-war attitude, most students at Prairie View looked at its NROTC program with pride. And why not? As late as 1970, approximately twenty-four HBCUs’ had ROTC programs across the United 209

Isaac W. Hampton II

States. Only one had an NROTC detachment and that was PV. By 1975, it was the single largest source for black officers in the Navy as it was responsible for the commissioning of forty-eight ensigns and second lieutenants. These graduates maintained a retention rate of approximately ninety-two percent, all promoted with their peers, and five were selected for graduate degree programs.43 Indeed, the aforementioned decades were some of the most divisive in American history in the area of racial equality. The Navy’s efforts to increase African American recruitment in ROTC were advancements for the race. The intent was to provide blacks a greater opportunity for leadership roles within the armed forces. With the door of opportunity opened a bit wider, African Americans, such as those at Prairie View, wanting a career as officers grasped at the chance; and as a result, they continued to push the United States military toward institutional change and the diversification of its leadership.

Notes 1 Prairie View (PV) A&M University is located forty-seven miles northwest of Houston, Texas. This institution can trace its military training program back to 1918 under the leadership of Dr. J.G. Osborne, who was the principal of PV. PV is a Land Grant College founded in 1876 under the Morrill Land Grant Act. It did not have its first school year until 1878 and was a two-year college. 2 Benjamin O. Davis, Jr., American. An Autobiography (Washington, DC: Plume, 1992) 44, 45; Gerald W. Patton, War And Race (London: Greenwood Press, 1981), 4–6; Marvin Fletcher, The Black Soldier and Officer In the United States Army 1891–1917 (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1974), 72–74. 3 John Hope Franklin, From Slavery to Freedom: A History of African Americans, Fourth Edition (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1974), 334–335. 4 Charles Johnson, Jr., African Americans and ROTC (Jefferson: McFarland & Company, 2002), 18–19; Outside of Annapolis and West Point, military training at American colleges traces its roots back to 1819 and Captain Alden Partridge, the driving force behind the opening of the American Literary, Scientific and Military Academy, which is known as Norwich University today. Acknowledged as father of the land grant colleges, Congressman Justin Smith Morrill of Vermont proved to be a key figure in bringing military training to civilian colleges. Signed into law on July 2, 1862, the first Morrill Act declared that each state in the Union received 30,000 acres of land. The sale of this land and the proceeds from this sale went to an endowment that would fund state colleges. It was mandatory that these schools have a form of military training. See David Santos, “ROTC’s Proud History,” Soldiers Magazine 61, No. 10 (October 2006): 40. 5 Patton, War And Race, 138. 6 John Whiteclay Chambers II, American Military History (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), 626–627. 7 “Developmental Plan 1970–1980. Prairie View A&M College of Texas. Report of the Centennial Council,” Prairie View: John B. Coleman Library, Archives, 1970, 67. 8 Captain B.W. Cloud, “Naval ROTC Unit Prairie View A&M University Department of Naval Science Annual Report 1974–75,” 9. Source located at the John B. Coleman Library Prairie View A&M NROTC files. 9 Morris J. MacGregor, Jr, Integration of the Armed Forces 1940–1965 (Washington, DC: Center of Military History United States Army, 1981), 100. 10 Ibid., 103. 11 Alex Poinsett, “The Negro Officer,” Ebony, August 1968, 139; The V-12 Program in the Navy was an alternate program to commission Navy officers during World War II. This program was available to African Americans in December of 1943. See MacGregor, Jr, Integration, 79–82. 12 Poinsett, “The Negro Officer,” 139. 13 Peter G. Nordlie, Measuring Changes in Institutional Discrimination in the Army (Arlington: U.S. Army Research Institute for the Behavioral and Social Sciences, February 1974), see figure 19. 14 “Annual Report of the President. Prairie View A. And M. College of Texas 1968–1969,” John B. Coleman Library Prairie View A&M NROTC files. 15 “Brief History of the Navy ROTC Unit.” This document is one page and located in the John B. Coleman Library Prairie View A&M NROTC files.

210

Navy’s Search for Black Officers 16 Dr. A.I. Thomas, interviewed by author, May 14, 2007. Audio and transcript deposited at Houston History Archives, M.D. Anderson Library. Thomas became president of PV on November 24, 1966. Prior to this, PV’s acting president was Dr. E.B. Evans from 1949 until 1965. The question of who was really president at PV caused great angst among the student population in the early and mid-1960s, when many felt discipline was too strict. In November of 1966, on the eve of Thomas becoming president, students boycotted the college exchange and student center in protest of these conditions. See Prairie View College newspaper, November 28, 1966. 17 Isaac Hampton II, The Black Officer Corps (New York: Routledge Press, 2012), 185. 18 James E. Westheider, Fighting On Two Fronts (New York: New York University Press, 1997), 12–13; James F. Dunnigan and Albert A. Nofi, Dirty Little Secrets of the Vietnam War (New York: Thomas Dunne Books, 1999), 6–7. 19 Ibid. 20 Emmett H. Tidd, Rear Admiral, U.S. Navy Commander, Navy Recruiting Command, “Memorandum for all Members of the 1974 NROTC Selection Committee. Subject: Guidance and Instructions for The 1974 NROTC Selection Committee,” February 11, 1974.” This source is located in a loose leaf book titled “Minutes Association of NROTC Colleges And Universities Biannual Meeting Rice University,” Houston, TX, October 30, 21 and November 1, 1974, John B. Coleman Library Prairie View A&M. Some of the pages in this have no numbers and are letters and memorandums. Further reference to this source appears as Memorandum. 21 Ibid. See first two pages of this document, but they are not numbered as “1” or “2.” 22 Ibid. 23 Ibid., 2,3 24 Ibid., 3,4,5. 25 Poinsett, “The Negro Officer,” 139. 26 John Sherwood, Black Sailor. White Navy (New York: New York University Press, 2007), 10. 27 Memorandum, 8. 28 Edward J. Drea, McNamara, Clifford, and the Burdens of Vietnam 1965–1969 (Washington, DC: Historical Office. Office of the Secretary of Defense, 2011), 6–7. 29 LCDR Russ Lyon, USNR, “Retention,” May 16, 1974. John B. Coleman Library Prairie View A&M. See NROTC files. This document was written for the NROTC Study Group (Code N-16) Staff of the Chief of Naval Education & Training. See pages 7–8. 30 Ibid., 8. 31 Ibid., 12. 32 AFROTC Directorate of Education, “A preliminary Study of the Relationship Between Certain of the Astin Variables and Detachment Viability,” May 11, 1973, 3. John B. Coleman Library Prairie View A&M NROTC files; In the area of pay, midshipmen who received an NROTC scholarship received $100 a month in 1971, and upon going on active duty as an O-1 (newly commissioned lieutenant or ensign) the max they could receive with dependents would be almost $638.48 a month or $7,661.76 in 1971. For that same year, the median household income in the United States was around $9,030. If the pay to serve in the armed forces were actually worth it, it would be an individual decision that varied across gender, race, and social class. 33 Lyon, USNR, “Retention,” See Graph IV. 34 Ibid. 35 Ibid., 7. 36 CDR William R. Smith, USNR-R, “Host Institution Interface Civilian Faculty and NROTC Student Interaction,” 1975, John B. Coleman Library Prairie View A&M NROTC files. See introduction in this document. 37 Ibid., 7. 38 Ibid., 8–9. 39 Frank Jackson interviewed by author, February 16, 2007, Houston History Archives, M.D. Anderson Library, and University of Houston (UMA-UH). 40 Ibid. 41 Ibid. 42 Ibid. 43 Cloud, “Naval ROTC Unit Prairie View A&M University Department of Naval Science Annual Report 1974–75,” 9.

211

This page intentionally left blank

19 AFRICAN AMERICANS AND THE VIETNAM WAR ERA James Westheider

The war in Vietnam was an important turning point regarding race and equal opportunity in the American Armed Forces. Prior to Vietnam, the military had developed a reputation for being the most integrated and racially advanced institution in America. The war would become a testing ground for these claims and for previous racial reforms and advances in the military. It would reveal that despite the Pentagon’s assurance of the elimination of racism amongst its ranks, personal and institutional racism still pervaded throughout. But the war would also become a powerful catalyst for further change, and the military would prove to be serious this time about implementing significant reforms that would eliminate personal and institutional racism and ensure equal opportunity and treatment. Vietnam was the first war in which the Pentagon integrated African Americans into every facet of the armed forces. National Urban League Executive Director Whitney M. Young, Jr., claimed there was an “unprecedented, unparalleled” degree of integration that existed among the American troops in Vietnam.1 The military did offer many African Americans the ability to get ahead. In contrast, the civilian world often offered little opportunity, and the African American unemployment rate was nearly twice that of whites. Alfonza Wright had been “living from paycheck to paycheck. You would work awhile and get laid off.”2 “Many boys . . . join the army . . . they lack money and can’t go to college and can’t get a job,” observed the mother of one recruit.3 Once African Americans joined the armed forces, they usually re-enlisted. In 1964, only 18.5 percent of white servicemen chose to re-enlist compared to 49.3 percent of African Americans, and in 1966, over sixty-six percent of the black veterans “re-upped.” Many of those that left the service, eventually returned. Allen Thomas left the Army in 1960 after completing his original obligation. He was a civilian for only thirty-three days before he re-enlisted and made the Army a career.4 Blacks often volunteered for service in Vietnam, especially early in the war. Many viewed the war as yet another opportunity to demonstrate that they deserved full civil rights and to disprove racist stereotypes portraying them as “cowardly” and “lazy”. Some did so out of patriotism. Professional concerns were also a reason, and those that did not get to go were often very disappointed. Alfonza Wright in 1965 “wanted to become an MP and go to Vietnam . . . I failed the test. I was crushed. I wanted to go so bad.”5 Others did not volunteer but served willingly when assigned to Vietnam.

213

James Westheider

Africans Americans were dedicated and capable warriors, and black accomplishments in Vietnam were recognized and praised in the mainstream media and by military officials. Twenty black servicemen would earn a Medal of Honor. The Commander-in-Chief, Military Assistance Command, Vietnam, (MACV), General William H. Westmoreland praised their performance in Vietnam as inspirational, and the New York Times observed that in Vietnam, “The Negro fighting man has attained a sudden visibility—a visibility his fore-fathers never realized while fighting in past American wars.”6 But this new visibility came with a price. Black casualty rates early in the war were disproportionately high. Between 1961 and 1967 African Americans accounted for fourteen percent of U.S. deaths in the war, and for thirteen percent of those killed in action in 1968. Between January 1, 1961 and April 30, 1975, 7,057 African Americans died in Vietnam, representing 12.6 percent of the total American dead. One Pentagon official argued that the high casualty rates demonstrated the valor of the Negro in combat, but many in the black community believed it was indicative of inherent racism in the military. The obvious reason for the high casualty rates was the disproportionate number of African Americans assigned to combat units. In 1965, 14.8 percent of total Army personnel and nearly one out of three infantrymen in Vietnam were black, and constituted eighteen percent of many airborne formations in 1966. By 1968, African American servicemen made up only ten percent of total American manpower in Vietnam, but accounted for over twenty percent of combat formations. Many African Americans volunteered for service in a combat unit, especially elite formations, because of the financial rewards, such as combat pay, and jump pay in the Airborne, and greater status and prestige. Officers sought assignment to Vietnam because service in a war zone normally meant more rapid promotion. Some African Americans were convinced that whites assigned blacks to combat assignments out of retaliation for perceived “militant” activities. Many white officers admitted to the practice, such as Captain Thomas Cecil, who “farmed out . . . four or five troops” who were “instigators” to front-line units.7 The main reason blacks ended up in combat was the military’s testing and placement system. Black recruits usually tested into one of the lower categories due to substandard educations and a cultural bias in the exams that favored whites. This earmarked them for either service or supply occupations, or for the infantry, which was a priority in an escalating war. The need was so great the Pentagon launched Project 100,000 in August 1966, allowing individuals to enlist who had failed to meet the minimum standards on the exams. Between October 1966 and June 1969, the armed forces inducted 246,000 “New Standards Men” with African Americans making up forty-one percent of the total. Thirty-seven percent of them ended up in combat units in Vietnam. Many black leaders questioned whether inequities in the draft contributed to the black casualty rate. The majority of troops that fought in Vietnam were enlistees, but the armed forces also relied heavily on the Selective Service system for manpower. In 1968, draftees made up forty-one percent of the Army “in country.” In all, the military conscripted two million two hundred and fifteen thousand men for military service, and a disproportionate number of them were black. Between 1965 and 1970, draft eligible African Americans, age nineteen to twenty-six, represented eleven percent of the population, but accounted for 14.3 percent of the draftees. The racial composition of the four thousand eighty local draft boards around the country, and the racial attitudes of their members, was the major reason for the disparity. The boards had the authority to either call up or grant a wide range of deferments—educational, medical, conscientious objector, occupational, or hardship—to potential conscripts. Even in areas with large black populations, the average board member was a white, middle-aged, and middle-class male with prior military service. In 1966, there were only two hundred and thirty African Americans on 214

African Americans and the Vietnam War

local boards around the country, a mere 1.3 percent of total membership. There were none at all in in Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, and South Carolina. Pressure by Civil Rights organizations, especially the NAACP, did bring some reforms; but as late as 1970, the 1,265 African Americans on local draft boards represented only 6.6 percent of the total. Some of the white board members were openly racist. Others were well-meaning but condescending, and their racist preconceptions shaped how they treated African Americans. This was particularly true when it came to granting deferments. One board member explained they seldom granted blacks hardship deferments “because in most cases they don’t have jobs or contribute to the support of their family. We often draft them because the allotment they get to send home is much more than they are contributing at present.” Wealthy actor George Hamilton qualified for a hardship deferment from his Manhattan draft board, but the local board in Tehula, Mississippi, denied Edward Neal’s application for one, despite the fact he held two jobs and supported his mother, disabled father, and eight siblings. Some even believed they were doing the young black men a favor by drafting them. “Most of these boys really want in the service . . . most of them are high school dropouts and can’t get jobs.” 8 The boards could grant a Conscientious Objector (C.O.) deferment based on religion or a sincere moral objection to war. Despite this latitude, boards were often reluctant to grant African Americans C.O. status. One board member claimed that few black applicants were true conscientious objectors. Members of the Nation of Islam in particular found it impossible to qualify for C.O. status, including heavyweight champion Muhammad Ali. African Americans that qualified for certain deferments such as educational or medical normally received them. Future Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, for example, obtained an educational deferment. Both were relatively expensive and beyond the economic resources of most African Americans. Nearly one-third of all black families in America during the war were below the poverty line, and the median income was about sixty percent of the average white family. There were numerous, often minor infirmities that could exempt one from military service, and overworked military doctors seldom questioned a diagnosis. But doctors and the often extensive testing needed to find an exemptible ailment was expensive. In 1979, over thirty-three percent of whites but less than twenty-five percent of African Americans failed the pre-induction physical. Educational deferments were a major point of contention. It was a safe haven for countless whites, but only five percent of African American males were in college during the war, lacking both the money to pay for it and often the education needed for admission. Though some did serve in Vietnam, another relatively safe refuge for whites was the National Guard and the military Reserves. The states controlled their own Guard establishments, and appointments were prone to favoritism and corruption. In 1969, blacks made up forty-two percent of Mississippi’s population, but there was only one African American serving in the state guard, and Alabama which was thirty percent black had only ten. In 1968, African Americans accounted for only 1.15 percent of the total Guard strength. Middle and upper class whites largely populated the Reserves. Authorities attempted to use the draft to silence Civil Rights activists and Black Nationalists. Nearly every national officer for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), including Walter Collins, Stokely Carmichael, H. Rap Brown, David Bell, and Cleveland Sellers, received induction notices. The Selective Service also unsuccessfully attempted to revoke John Lewis’ C.O. citing his recent antiwar activities and his support for “draft card burners.”9 Many chose to fight induction, including fifteen members of the SNCC, but it could be expensive, and few could afford it. Ali’s lawyers kept him out of jail, but over one hundred fellow members of the Nation of Islam did jail time for resisting the draft. African Americans convicted of draft evasion received prison sentences nearly a year longer than those handed down to whites. 215

James Westheider

Draft resister Warren Crawford received six concurrent five-year prison terms, the longest sentence given anyone for draft evasion during the war. As the war progressed so did black dissatisfaction with the draft. Seventy-five percent of African Americans believed the draft was racially fair in a 1966 Gallup Poll, but less than fifty percent by 1969. The Selective Service would respond to its critics with a series of reforms designed to make the draft more equitable; it phased out undergraduate, graduate, fatherhood and occupational deferments and instituted a lottery system based on birthdays. But the damage had already been done. An editorial in the April 6, 1968, edition of the Afro-American noted that “The young men of draft age don’t really care who does the drafting. They are opposed to the whole darn idea of being used for cannon fodder.” Many resisted on the grounds that they had no obligation to fight for a country that did not accord them the full rights of citizenship. More militant African Americans like Sellers and Carmichael charged that the draft was a “plan of calculated genocide” against African Americans.10 The vast majority of drafted African Americans went into the military willingly, but as they discovered, it was into a white armed forces reflecting Euro-American culture and priorities. The officer corps was overwhelmingly white. At the beginning of the war, blacks made up only two percent of the military’s commissioned officers. Throughout the war, the Department of Defense (DOD) sought to increase the number of black officers, but these efforts met with limited success. By 1973, there was a black admiral for the first time in the Navy’s history, and four black generals, but overall, African Americans still only accounted for two and a half percent of the officers. Most African Americans would experience racism during their service careers. Inequities in testing channeled them into the combat arms and other soft-core specialties. During the war, they comprised 16.3 percent of enlisted strength of the combat arms and about twenty percent of the service and supply troops. Many of these Military Occupational Specialty (MOS) troops had little opportunity for advancement. Petty Officer Ron Carter recalled the petty, dead-end assignments which hurt his and other African Americans’ opportunities for promotion. “If you were assigned to washing airplanes or cleaning the barracks, and other people were allowed to work with the airplanes, they had an edge.” Many also cited racist officers and NCOs as a reason. Almost two-thirds of the African Americans in Vietnam believed whites received promotions faster than they did. Racism in the military justice system, particularly the use of Non-Judicial punishment, generated the greatest concern. Non-Judicial Punishment (NJP), also called an Article 15 in the Army and Air Force, and a “Captain’s Mast” in the Navy and Marines, was the main form of discipline for lesser infractions, and punishment varied from a reprimand to incarceration and loss of pay and rank. The tremendous discretionary power given to the commanding officer in these cases led to racially based double standards and abuses. An Air Force “Human Relations Team,” found “unequal treatment is manifested in unequal punishment,” and “double-standards in enforcement of regulations.” The Department of Defense’s Task Force on the Administration of Military Justice determined, “There is enough evidence of intentional discrimination by individuals to convince the task force that selective punishment is in many cases racially motivated.”11 African Americans were also more likely to be court-martialed. In 1971–1972, blacks made up approximately thirty-four percent of the court-martials on the bases studied by the DOD. Often incarcerated while awaiting trial, they also spent more time in pre-trial confinement than whites. They were almost certain to face a white judge and usually an all-white jury. African Americans made up less than two percent of the Judge Advocate General’s Office during the war. Despite this, the system often exonerated unfairly charged African Americans; those that took their chances at trial had twice the chance of beating the charges than did whites. If found guilty, they spent more time in prison than whites, and were more likely to receive a less than honorable discharge. 216

African Americans and the Vietnam War

African Americans also faced numerous incidents of personal racism, and were convinced that bigoted officers and NCOs gave blacks the most dangerous or the worst assignments. David Parks was convinced his company sergeant deliberately selected minorities for hazardous assignments such as Forward Observer (FO). Some whites were members of the Ku Klux Klan (KKK), and one prominent black sergeant had a cross burned in front of his living quarters. African Americans were particularly incensed over the widespread display of the Confederate flag. It often flew over all-white hooches in Vietnam. Helicopter pilots stationed at Phu Loi wore Confederate flags on their shoulder patches, and in 1970, the Air Force Academy permitted white cadets to exhibit Confederate flags in their dormitory and on bathrobes. African Americans reacted by developing an intense racial solidarity. They called each other “brother” or “blood” and greeted one another with either a “Black power” salute which was a clenched fist raised in the air, or by Dapping. Also known as “Checking In” and derived from “dep,” Vietnamese slang for “beautiful,” it was a ritualized handshake that often had dozens of movements and could take several minutes to perform. They wore symbols of black pride such as slave bracelets woven from boot laces, and carried polished ebony black power canes. Many let their hair grow out into Afros. In 1969, sixty percent of the blacks interviewed by Wallace Terry in Vietnam wore Afros, and another seventeen percent said they would if their commanding officer allowed it. Fifty-two percent of the respondents said they preferred to live in all-black hooches, over which they flew Black Power flags, usually black, red, and green and often with a proverb in Swahili or a clenched fist adorning it. They preferred to patronize different recreational hangouts than whites. In Saigon, whites sought entertainment along Tu Do Street; African Americans went to Trinh Minh, which they nicknamed “Soul Alley.” For most African Americans, black solidarity was a positive reaffirmation of their culture, and a significant number adopted at least the symbols of racial pride. Many, however, were becoming more militant, influenced by racist treatment in the military as well as events in the civilian world, particularly the rise of Black Nationalism. Early in the Vietnam War, most African Americans in the military supported the Civil Rights Movement and admired leaders such as Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and A. Randolph. The militants’ hero was Malcolm X, and they believed the future of black liberation lay with organizations like the Black Panther Party not the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) or the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC). Marine Corporal Joseph Harris of Los Angeles summed up the feelings of many African Americans when he told the New York Times: “The NAACP, Urban League and Martin Luther King were all good for their time and context, but this is a new time.”12 Wallace Terry noticed that in 1966 “no Negroes seemed to identify with extreme militants.”13 Three years later their influence was so widespread that Time Magazine spoke of a “new spirit of black militancy.”14 By 1968, young blacks entering the military expected to find racism, and they were prepared to confront it. George Daniels observed that “they’re saying that they no longer accept this. They won’t accept it as it is, and they must act accordingly. So they’re in rebellion. They’ve tried to do things, I think peacefully, but in many cases violence is necessary.”15 Many African Americans resented serving in Vietnam to fight for what they considered to be a racist military and civilian society. They wondered why they were fighting the Vietnamese when the real enemy appeared to be white Americans. King and other Civil Rights leaders had initially been reluctant to denounce the war in Vietnam in deference to President Lyndon Johnson for everything he had done for the movement. Black nationalists and younger activists had voiced their opposition early in the war but in May 1967, King became the first major mainstream leader to do so. At the time, it was not a popular stance with African Americans serving in the war. By spring 1968, many now believed that the war and the Civil Rights Movement were linked, and that the real struggle was back home. The New York Times observed, “American 217

James Westheider

Negro soldiers in Vietnam used to consider the war and the Civil Rights Movement as separate things but the past three years have had an exacerbating effect. For the first time black G.I.’s ask: “Why should I defend someone else’s freedom if no one defends mine?”16 Friction between more militant African American personnel and the chain of command and white service personnel was building. Some whites were racist and had been provoking trouble. Others were angered or annoyed and resented African American solidarity and self-segregation. Dapping was a major source of friction, for example, because many blacks would engage in lengthy daps in inconvenient locations, such as chow lines. African Americans were particularly shocked and angered by the reaction of many whites to the assassination of King on April 4, 1968. Some whites, such as Air Force Airman 1st Class Logan Hill, were horrified and shared the grief of their black comrades. Others, however, openly celebrated by wearing makeshift Klan outfits and hoisting Confederate flags at Danang and Cam Ranh Bay. Things changed after King’s death. “Almost everywhere here you can see the unity which exists among the Negro soldiers,” observed Private Morocco Coleman. “After the assassination of Dr. M.L. King you could also feel the malcontent.” “No more talk,” explained John R. White. “We just kill them off or they kill us off. That’s just how bad it is here.”17 Racial violence in itself was nothing new, but it usually had occurred during off-duty hours at recreational establishments. In May 1966, for example, The Afro-American reported a racial gang fight between approximately fifty white and black Marines at a bar in Danang. Beginning in the summer of 1968, the frustration and anger reached a critical mass as numerous incidents of racial violence and gang fights plagued the armed forces. The first major incidents were jailhouse riots and racial fights at the Long Binh Stockade and Danang Brig in Vietnam in August 1968. More significant and disturbing was the “Rumble” at Camp Lejeune on July 20, 1969, that left dozens of Marines injured, several hospitalized, and a white corporal dead. Lejeune in 1968 had already witnessed over one hundred sixty recorded racial assaults. Similar conditions existed at most bases, and there was an upsurge in racial violence throughout the military establishment. There were large racial gang fights at Millinton Naval Air Station near Memphis, Tennessee, and Kaneohe Marine Corps Air Station. Major racial disturbances also occurred at the naval installation at Cam Ranh Bay, and clubs were wrecked in Chu Lai and Qui Nhon and a dozen other places. The violence continued for several years. In 1971, there were major incidents at the Enlisted Men’s club at the Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland, and at Fort McClellan, Alabama, and the following year at Machinato, Okinawa. Much of the racial violence consisted of ambushes. There was an endless cycle of “small gang wars going back and forth between companies. Blacks against whites, whites would attack blacks, Hispanics would attack blacks, and it was a constant give and take which just went on,” according to Major Thomas Cecil. In Dong Tam in the Delta, Dien Hoa north of Saigon, and in Bien Hoa and Dong Tom, groups of blacks ambushed whites. In Knielingen, West Germany, two whites from Alabama killed three black soldiers. The military even installed lights on the streets of Camp Tien Sha near Danang to help deter the violence between roving bands of whites and blacks.18 The Navy suffered its worst racial violence late in the war. In 1965, African Americans had made up only five percent of the Navy’s enlisted strength, but by 1972 they accounted for twelve percent. There was also a growing discontent among black sailors. In October 1972, nearly two hundred black crewmen on the carrier Kitty Hawk rioted and roamed the ship attacking whites. Racial disturbances on several vessels followed including Hassayampa, Constellation, Intrepid, Inchon, and Sumter. Riots also occurred at the Norfolk, Virginia Brig, and the Navy base on Midway Island. The combat units in Vietnam were the one major exception to the violence. Dealing with a determined enemy and the realities of a life and death situation forced the men in these units to rely 218

African Americans and the Vietnam War

on each other and fostered close, small unit cohesion. A 1969 Army study noted that “polarization of the races” was “more obvious in those areas where groups were not in direct contact with an armed enemy.”19 Combat veterans have verified the camaraderie that existed out in the field. Sp4 W.C. Benn wrote that in his unit “in the evenings, black and white troops would get together, blow grass, and rap.”20 Captain Cecil F. Davis claimed that we had “absolutely nothing, we were all in there together.”21 The fact that everyone was heavily armed served to deter the few who might contemplate causing trouble. Sgt. Allen Thomas, Jr., observed that “anyone causing racial problems out in the field when you’ve got all these weapons and grenades, has just got to be a fool.”22 There were other racial problems in combat units, however. Beginning in 1968, there was an alarming increase in the number or racially motivated combat refusals among African Americans in Vietnam. In the 187th Infantry, seven African Americans refused combat duty, claiming that racist commanders were exposing them to undue risk. In 1972, the “Phu Bai 13” from the 101st Airborne Division refused orders, occupied a barracks, and issued a list of demands. There was also the issue of fragging, which was the deliberate attempt by enlisted personnel to kill a superior officer. It received the moniker “fragging” because the popular weapon of choice was a fragmentation grenade which left little evidence. A congressional inquiry documented one thousand sixteen incidents of fraggings between 1969 and 1972; a sizable number were racially motivated. Most African Americans did not want violence; they wanted an end to racism, and the military to live up to its egalitarian claims. To achieve these goals, blacks organized. There were moderate reformers, such as the “Council of Concerned Marines,” at Camp Lejeune. Similar organizations existed on bases throughout the military establishment and sought to engage authorities in productive dialogue and affect change. This often led to positive and peaceful results, but some military officials proved rigid and resented what they considered to be an insubordinate challenge to their authority. At Fort McClellan, Alabama, in November 1971, for example, weeks of negotiations between black activists and base authorities failed to settle complaints over promotion, military justice, music in service clubs, and other issues leading to demonstrations and violence. There were more radical and militant self-defense organizations like the Ju Ju’s, radical but non-violent organizations like the Malcolm X Society in the Air Force, and Black Nationalists like the Movement for a Democratic Military (MDM), and the Black Servicemen’s Caucus, advocating revolution. Many of these openly identified with and admired civilian militants, especially the Black Panther Party, with whom the military radicals occasionally cooperated. Military authorities were eager to blame their racial woes on changes in civilian society in general and “outside agitators” in particular. The riot at Camp Lejeune was “a reflection of the nation’s racial problem,” according to the House Armed Services Committee, 23 and a host of top officials blamed all outside agitators and “external influences.” Outside influences were certainly contributory factors, but officials had seriously overestimated the influence of the militants. Few blacks supported the radicals.24 Even a top official in the MDM admitted that their “ultra-left rhetoric . . . isolates them from the majority of GI’s.”25 The military developed a strategy for dealing with its racial crisis based on the realization that a need for genuine reform existed, and the assumption that the violence and discontent was the work of a small percentage of individuals. They would purge the military of the militants. In 1969, the NAACP heard increasing complaints that authorities were using the military justice system to “rid the Army of militants.” Most of the service branches developed programs to identify and process out undesirables with either general or undesirable discharges. In 1973, the Navy discharged 2,905 sailors, including 378 African Americans, as unfit or undesirable. New regulations prohibited “subversive” media and militant insignia or displays. Many base commanders banned The Black Panther newspaper, and another in Southeast Asia banned the 219

James Westheider

recorded speeches of Malcolm X. The Navy, and the Marine Corps commandant as well as many base and battalion commanders, issued directives prohibiting “all gestures that have been used to express particular ethnic group’s pride, unity and identification . . . in order to promote racial harmony.”26 Officials also recognized the need for serious reform, and in this they were far more successful. Beginning in 1969, the armed forces introduced significant reforms to help ensure equal opportunity and eliminate personal and institutional racism. The military justice system was overhauled and the arbitrary ability of officers to dispense harsh non-judicial punishments was limited. The Defense Department founded the Domestic Action Council to develop major race relations programs for implementation throughout the armed forces. In 1970, race relations became part of an officers’ and non-commissioned officers’ efficiency reports rating, and Army commanders were instructed to include “minority group representation” on all promotion boards. In 1971, the newly established Defense Race Relations Institute trained fourteen hundred race relations instructors a year. By 1972, every service had mandatory Race Relations classes; every Marine, for example, received twenty hours of race relations courses. The Navy between 1969 and 1972 began over two hundred new race-related programs, and expanded and reconfirmed their commitment to existing ones. Most importantly, there had been a seminal change in attitude toward minorities in the military. The DOD Equal Opportunity Program mandated equal opportunity for all DOD employees, and “tasked” the services to develop Affirmative Action programs. In 1972, the Army implemented an ambitious policy based on affirmative action, but tied it to high performance standards. The proposal called for one hundred and thirty-eight recommended changes and reforms designed to address the under-representation of African Americans in most military occupational specialties. It proved highly successful and a model for civilian society. The Pentagon also exhibited an honest concern for black cultural and personal needs. More and varied black consumer products appeared in the PX, and the Equal Opportunity in Off-Base Housing program established a Housing Referral Office on each DOD installation to help service personnel contest off-post discrimination. The contributions of former black military heroes were recognized; a barracks at Quantico, Virginia, was named after the first black Marine recipient of the Medal of Honor, PFC. James Anderson, Jr., and Camp Gilbert H. Johnson was activated at Camp Lejeune and named after one of the first blacks admitted into the Corps. Vietnam was indeed a true turning point in military race relations. The work of the reformers, and the violence and discontent, had finally convinced authorities to take racial issues and concerns seriously. By the end of the twentieth century, African Americans made up nearly twenty percent of the enlisted strength, nearly a third of the Army’s NCO’s, and approximately eleven percent of the Army’s officer corps. African Americans again found the military to be the most racially egalitarian institution in America. A 1999 Pentagon study found that African American and Latino service personnel had a higher job satisfaction rate than did their white comrades in arms.

Notes 1 John W. Finney, “President Backs Negro Promotion,” The New York Times, July 27, 1966, 24. 2 Alfonza Wright, Interview with the author, September 18, 2003. 3 Art Carter, “If My Son Can’t Go to School, Why Must My Son Go to Vietnam?” The Afro-American, June 11, 1966, 20. 4 Allen Thomas, Jr., Interview with the author, Erlanger, Kentucky, July 25, 2000. 5 Wright, interview. 6 Thomas Johnson, “The U.S. Negro in Vietnam,” The New York Times, April 29, 1968, 1.

220

African Americans and the Vietnam War 7 Major Thomas Cecil, Senior Officer Oral History Project, U.S. Army Military History Institute 1982, 19–21. 8 Gene Stephens, “Board 53 Smallest in County,” The Cincinnati Enquirer, August 13, 1966, 12. 9 “Move to Draft Rights Leader,” The Baltimore Afro-American, January 22, 1966, 13. 10 “The Draft Boards,” The Afro-American, April 6, 1968, 3. 11 Department of Defense, Task Force on the Administration of Military Justice in the Armed Forces, vol. I (Washington, D.C.: US Government Printing Office, 1972), 63. 12 “Black Power in Viet Nam,” Time, September 19, 1969, 22–23. 13 Wallace Terry, “Bringing the War Home, ” Black Scholar 2 (November 1970): 7–8. 14 “Black Power in Viet Nam,” 22–23. 15 “Black Marines Against the Brass,” accessed June 10, 2014. www.aavw.org/served/racetensions_dan ielsandharvey_abstract01.html 16 C.L. Sulzberger, “Foreign Affairs: The Spin-Out,” The New York Times, May 21, 1969, 46. 17 Clinton H. Hunt Interview with author, and; “Letters to the Editor, Ebony, August, 1968, 17, and John R. White, “Letter from Vietnam,” The Black Panther, August 16, 1969, 9. 18 Major Thomas Cecil Interview, Senior Officer Oral History Project, 2. 19 William H. McMichael, “A War on Two Fronts,” Newport News-Hampton,Virginia Daily Press Williamsburg Edition, July 27, 1998, 1, A4-A6. 20 Richard Boyle, Flower of the Dragon: The Breakdown of the U.S. Army in Vietnam (San Francisco: Ramparts Press, 1972), 7. 21 Major Cecil F. Davis Interview, Senior Officer Oral History Project, 4. 22 James E. Westheider, “Sgt. Allen Thomas, Jr.: A Black Soldier in Vietnam” in Portraits of African American Life Since 1865, ed. Nina Mjagkij (Wilmington: Delaware: Scholarly Resources, Inc. 2003), 219–236. 23 House Armed Services Committee, Inquiry into the Disturbances at Marine Corps Base, Camp Lejeune, N.C. on July 20, 1969 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1969), 5052. 24 SSG. Robert Jr. Jackson, “Another Soldier’s Opinion,” Letters to the Editor, Sepia, January 1968, 6. 25 Alfonzo Wright Interview, and; Wilkinson, “GI’s and the Antiwar Movement,” 17. 26 Ralph W. Donnelly and Henry I. Shaw, Jr., Blacks in the Marine Corps (Washington, D.C.: History and Museums Division Headquarters, U.S. Marine Corps., 1975), 74.

221

This page intentionally left blank

20 THE RIGHT TO BEAR ARMS Enlisting Chicanos into the U.S. Military, 1940–1980 Steven Rosales

Prior to his death at the hands of a Japanese sniper in April 1945, World War II correspondent Ernie Pyle attracted an immense following for his intimate and folksy style of writing, a prose often written from the perspective of the common soldier. His descriptive accounts focused on the out-of-the-way places he visited and the daily ordeals endured by American servicemen overseas, ranging from the dangers associated with combat to the lack of hot meals and proper shower facilities. His interest on the mundane and routine also highlighted the ethnic composition of the rank and file in the U.S. military. For example, in the summer of 1943, while serving in the Sicilian campaign with the 120th Engineers Battalion of the 45th Infantry Division, Pyle made the following observation: The 120th was made up of Spanish Americans, Indians, straight New Mexicans, and a smattering of men from the East . . . A large percentage of the battalion spoke Spanish, and occasionally I heard some of the officers talking Spanish among themselves, just to keep in practice, I suppose. That New Mexico bunch missed more than anything, I believe, the Spanish dishes they were accustomed to back home. Their folks occasionally sent them cans of chili and peppers, and then they had a minor feast.1 This report from Sicily confirms the presence of Mexican Americans (and other Latinos) in the U.S. military during the Second World War.2 Legally classified as white, despite the de facto reality of discriminatory treatment often associated with racialized “others,” Mexican American servicemen avoided the indignity of serving in segregated units endured by other marginalized communities.3 They also displayed incredible tenacity and courage under fire, amassing eleven Medals of Honor during World War II, the nation’s highest award for valor on the battlefield.4 In the postwar struggle for civil rights, such heroics would enable Mexican American activists to use the “battlefield exploits of Mexican American soldiers as irrefutable proof that the ethnic group was deserving of first-class citizenship.”5 This chapter will offer a survey on how Mexican American youth embraced a tradition of martial citizenship from World War II through the Vietnam War that emphasized military service as a powerful avenue toward social and political equality. Class vulnerability and racial discrimination fueled a generational perception that service in the U.S. military was a type of social contract, one that offered the possibility of first-class citizenship and socioeconomic opportunity in return 223

Steven Rosales

for dedicated service.6 Moreover, traditional notions of masculine honor and behavior often associated with Latin machismo further reinforced this linking of citizenship and soldiering. As literary critic George Mariscal has argued, a type of “warrior patriotism” has typified the Chicano drive to assimilate into the American mainstream, with historical antecedents in masculine codes of conduct within Mexico that celebrated the willingness to die in defense of “la patria” (fatherland).7 When transferred to a modern U.S. context (1940–1980), ample opportunities emerged for Mexican American youth to answer the call to arms in accordance with this idealized vision of masculine and civic responsibility.8 In what follows, I explore the catalysts that motivated Mexican American youth to enlist or readily accept their draft notice with a particular focus on socioeconomic mobility, gender identity, and the drive for inclusion into the American mainstream. By mapping the cultural context that influenced large elements of the Mexican American community, this analysis helps to illuminate how military service provided a central reference point in the attempt to understand citizenship and lay claim to national belonging. Additionally, as a social space imbued with its own martial and masculine ethos, the U.S. military offers an ideal location to study the aspirations and behaviors of these young men. As Gina M. Pérez has persuasively argued, “The U.S. military is an especially important institution to examine regarding . . . moments of inclusion and exclusion, not only because it symbolizes a vision of citizenship that rests on sacrifice, honor, and patriotism, but also because it is an invaluable vehicle for economic mobility for many working-class families.”9 Obscured in this conceptual framework, however, was the very real prospect for damaging consequences associated with military service, including physical injury, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and drug and alcohol abuse. Furthermore, many veterans gained few transferable skills or proved unable to utilize the full range of benefits provided, in particular the GI Bill, which mitigated social mobility upon release from active duty. Such complications enhance my analysis by underscoring the need to move beyond mere celebratory assessments of military service and martial citizenship. They reveal the risks that Mexican American youth were willing to contemplate and the diverse consequences of military service, including the potential for a redefined sense of self willing to engage in political activism in pursuit of the full privileges of first class citizenship.

Soldiering in the U.S. Military A key factor in the decision to enlist was the potential for upward mobility and the desire to leave behind difficult economic circumstances. For many Mexican American families from 1940 to 1980, poverty remained a constant reality in urban barrios and agricultural labor camps, and the promise of regular wages, military training, and access to health care was a welcome relief. Military service also provided access to the various entitlements associated with the GI Bill, including low interest loans, educational assistance, and unemployment compensation. This capacity to serve as a “bridging environment” that can nurture improved socioeconomic status has remained one of the more powerful points of debate in connection with the Armed Forces. Furthermore, veteran status for socially marginalized groups would seemingly enhance this bridging process as a result of their less advantageous position in U.S. society. A study by Harley L. Browning, Sally C. Lopreato, and Dudley L. Poston, Jr., completed in 1973, showed an estimated average gross difference of $711 between veteran and non-veteran status for Mexican Americans across a variety of professional and more labor intensive occupations. For white Americans, by contrast, the average difference was $122. The 1/100 Public Use Sample from the 1960 U.S. Census employed a number of different criteria to restrict the sample to veterans who served in World War II and after. As can be seen in Table 20.1 below, veteran status for Mexican Americans produced a positive 224

The Right to Bear Arms Table 20.1 Mean Differences between Veteran and Non-Veteran Income in Specific Occupational Groups Occupational Group

Mexican American Mean Veteran Income

Differences between Mexican American Veteran, Non-Veteran Income

Anglo Mean Veteran Income

Differences between Anglo Veteran, Non-Veteran Income

Professionals Managers Clerical Sales Craftsmen Operatives Service Laborers Total

$7,175 $6,533 $5,089 $6,001 $5,355 $4,807 $4,471 $4,891 —

$207 $175 $967 $1,222 $131 $490 $1,133 $1,225 $711

$8,892 $8,762 $5,956 $7,502 $6,421 $5,797 $5,584 $5,075 —

$453 − $716 − $62 $74 $6 $178 $185 $238 $122

Source: Harley L. Browning, Sally C. Lopreato, and Dudley L. Poston, Jr., “Income and Veteran Status: Variations among Mexican Americans, Blacks, and Anglos,” American Sociological Review, 33 (1973), 74–85.

mean difference across the board, and it had a particular impact on the least skilled occupational groups—sales, service, and laborers—where a bridging process would most likely be expected to occur.10 Meanwhile, aside from professionals, white veterans benefitted less from their veteran status; two categories—managers and clerical—actually suffered as a result of their military service. Another study, completed in 1979, utilizing data drawn from three 1/100 Public Use Samples of the 1970 U.S. Census, identified a $1,795 difference in mean income favoring Mexican American veterans over non-veterans of World War II. As highlighted in Table 20.2 below, this is double the amount that existed between white veterans and non-veterans, which stood at $895.11 The Korean War produced a net difference of $1,725 and the Vietnam War, $587, again favoring veterans. What is telling, however, is that Mexican American veterans nevertheless earned less than both white veterans and non-veterans in terms of overall average income across three generations. However, not all veterans encountered social mobility after their military service. Provided with few transferable skills and unwilling or unable to utilize their GI Bill and other entitlements due to discriminatory practices and other logistical issues common to any bureaucracy as vast as the Veterans Administration (VA), many Mexican Americans returned to unskilled manual labor or migrant farm work in the civilian sector. Moreover, the tangible

Table 20.2 Mean Differences in Income between Mexican American Veterans/Non-Veterans and Anglo Veterans/Non-Veterans Cohort

Mexican American Veterans

Mexican American Non-Veterans

Anglo Veterans

Anglo Non-Veterans

World War II Korea Vietnam

$7,857 $8,051 $6,538

$6,062 $6,326 $5,951

$9,480 $9,694 $7,823

$8,585 $8,978 $8,315

Source: Melanie Martindale and Dudley L. Poston, Jr., “Variations in Veteran/Nonveteran Earning Patterns Among World War II, Korea, and Vietnam War Cohorts,” Armed Forces & Society, 5 (1979), 219–243.

225

Steven Rosales

benefits associated with military service, in particular the GI Bill, fluctuated considerably from 1940 to 1980, leaving Korean War and Vietnam veterans with fewer benefits from which to draw. At its peak in 1949, monthly GI Bill benefits were 53.9 percent of monthly wages in the manufacturing industry; by 1975, they had decreased to 34.3 percent.12 And so, while many Mexican American veterans undoubtedly benefitted from their military service, these observations depict a more complicated and uneven reality, further underscoring the need to re-examine the capacity of the Armed Forces to serve as a bridging environment to improved socioeconomic status. The U.S. military also provided an arena in which a pre-existing emphasis on conventional forms of masculine and sexual behavior paralleled, and often reinforced, cultural notions of masculine identity, including idealized notions of the warrior often associated with machismo. Yet, defining the Mexican macho, and the machismo of their Chicano brethren to the north, is no easy task. Sensationalized passages utilized by a number of early scholars have emphasized an aggressive form of masculine and sexual posturing, typified by infidelity, alcoholism, and a willingness to go to one’s death “smiling.”13 Perhaps no author better exemplifies this exaggerated view of masculine and national identity within Mexico than Octavio Paz, a noted, yet controversial, member of the Mexican intelligentsia. According to Paz, at blame for such behavior is a tremendous sense of inferiority stemming from the intermixture of Spaniard and indigenous peoples through violence and furthered by territorial conquest and economic subjugation at the hands of the United States. A form of defensive masculinity and warrior fatalism was the inevitable result.14 Furthermore, Mexican nationalist ideology championed an intense form of exaggerated masculinity in literary and cinematic productions in the decades following the Mexican Revolution (1911–17), one that reinforced many of the popularized character traits associated with machismo.15 This scholarship similarly depicted the Mexican American community as heir to a cultural heritage obsessed with machismo and hierarchical gender relations. Indeed, the assertion of manhood by Mexican immigrants in the United States was a recurrent theme in early Chicano literature.16 Caught between two worlds, both Mexican and American, machismo offered emotional support for young Mexican Americans coming of age in the United States, as they struggled with overt racism and socioeconomic marginalization. In this struggle to assimilate in a modern U.S. context, the perceived need to prove one’s manhood and loyalty as an American citizen—what Mariscal describes as the notion of warrior patriotism—provided added incentive to serve in the U.S. military. The period from 1940 to 1980, encompassing World War II and the conflicts in Korea and Vietnam, offered ample opportunities to do so, reaffirming for many a connection between machismo and conventional manifestations of male sex role behaviors, including the pursuit of masculine honor through warfare. This distorted and sensationalized discourse largely remained unchallenged in scholarly and popular conceptions of machismo until the emergence of critical men’s studies in the 1980s and 1990s. Initially, the emphasis in this new literature within the U.S. and European academy was on the multiple masculinities of European males and their American counterparts, but more recently a steady and more nuanced stream of scholarship has emerged, led by the behavioral and social sciences, that has examined men and masculinities in Latin America, the U.S. Latino/a community, and the migrant streams between the two.17 This rich body of scholarship has ultimately highlighted a series of themes in the construction of masculine identity. First, male gender develops in relation to sets of “others.” These include women, other males, larger marketplace forces, and social structures of power, such as racial and class privilege. Second, notions of manhood evolve, and are even contested, and thus are in a constant state of flux. And third, there are multiple masculinities, each defined contextually. While a dominant, or hegemonic, form of masculinity exists, as Raewyn (R.W.) Connell asserts, it “is not a fixed character type, always and everywhere 226

The Right to Bear Arms

the same. It is, rather, the masculinity that occupies the hegemonic position in a given pattern of gender relations, a position always contestable.”18 Thus, despite the existence of hegemonic ideals concerning proper masculine behavior within the larger Mexican American community and the U.S. military that influenced many coming of age during the Cold War era, individual Mexican Americans also pushed boundaries and reinterpreted and crafted their own definitions of manhood. Indeed, the homosocial milieu fostered by the all-male environment of the U.S. military played a critical role in fostering a gendered process that was anything but fixed and conventional, allowing for alternative masculine behaviors and sexualities, both gay and straight, despite the military’s focus on strict regimentation and compulsory heterosexuality. The result was a myriad of approaches to military service and masculine honor, a layered process that did not always require conventional displays of masculinity nor a direct connection to combat duty. These more fluid understandings of masculinity illuminate a third factor motivating enlistment into the Armed Forces in addition to the possibility of socioeconomic gain and notions of masculine honor. As members of a marginalized community, military service offered an opportunity to showcase Mexican American fealty toward the United States and seemingly earn the full privileges of citizenship. The nature of military service differed dramatically, however, during this forty year time period. The national collective effort characteristic of World War II and Korea differed sharply from the highly divisive nature of American involvement in Vietnam. Mexican American veterans of the former two conflicts generally pursued a precisely defined agenda that linked their military service with civil rights activism, a process immortalized as “Double Victory” by the African American community during the Second World War. The integrationist policies of the American GI Forum, and its founder and World War II veteran Dr. Hector P. García, offers a powerful example. First established in Corpus Christi, Texas, in 1948, to aid Mexican American veterans in securing GI Bill and other entitlements in a timely manner, it moved to the forefront of civil rights activism the following year after a white mortician refused to bury the returned remains of Private Félix Longoria in his hometown of Three Rivers, Texas.19 In November 1948, Beatrice Longoria was notified by the Army that the remains of her husband, Private Félix Longoria, would be arriving in San Francisco the following January. He had entered the Army in November, 1944, and served as an infantryman in the re-conquest of Luzon, where he was subsequently killed in action on June 16, 1945, when his patrol was ambushed by Japanese snipers. Mrs. Longoria needed to find a burial site, and she ultimately settled on his hometown of Three Rivers, Texas, about a two-hour drive northwest of Corpus Christi. Excerpts from a notarized statement detail the series of events that unfolded in her efforts to reinter her husband in Three Rivers: On January 7, 1949, I went to Three Rivers, Texas, my former hometown, to make arrangements for my husband’s . . . funeral. I went to the Rice Funeral Home (the) only funeral home in Three Rivers . . . owned by Mr. T.W. Kennedy to have the funeral arrangements made. He agreed to handle the arrangements, but when I told him I wanted his body kept at the chapel, he said, “Well, Mrs. Longoria, I have lots of Latin friends but I can’t let his body rest at this chapel because the whites won’t like it.” I returned to Corpus Christi to consult with my family about the incident. One of my sisters immediately got in contact with the “American GI Forum” . . . and I authorized Dr. García to try to get the use of the chapel for my husband’s services . . . Dr. García then called Mr. Kennedy and was told by Mr. Kennedy that “they had never let the Latin Americans use the chapel and were not starting now, even if he was a soldier killed in action.”20 227

Steven Rosales

In response to this outrage, Dr. García wired protest telegrams to various state and federal officials. He also organized a protest meeting with members of the American G.I. Forum at Lamar Elementary School in Corpus Christi on January 11, 1949, that was open to the public. At the meeting, Dr. García read the following telegram from then U.S. Senator from Texas, Lyndon Baines Johnson: I deeply regret to learn that the prejudice of some individuals extends even beyond this life. I have no authority over civilian funeral homes. Nor does the federal government. However, I have today made arrangements to have Félix Longoria buried with full military honors in Arlington National Cemetery here at Washington . . . Or, if his family prefers to have his body interred nearer his home, he can be reburied at Fort Sam Houston National Military Cemetery at San Antonio. There will be no cost . . .21 Thus, with Mrs. Longoria’s approval, Dr. García presented the audience with three options, burial in Arlington, San Antonio, or Three Rivers. The majority voted to accept the senator’s offer. This powerful victory for civil rights bolstered a broad spectrum of political activism that emerged after the war in an effort to combat segregation and other discriminatory practices. It displayed a galvanized consciousness and sense of entitlement that utilized the community’s exploits and dedicated service as irrefutable proof of the community’s worthiness. Mexican American veterans, in particular, were cognizant of the many inconsistencies that remained in American society despite having championed democratic principles in the struggle against fascism. Civic engagement proved the inevitable result for many of these veterans. Indeed, problems of inclusion vis-à-vis military benefits and more broadly, the American Dream, pushed veterans and non-veterans alike to continue the pursuit of social equality, a process already begun prior to World War II. Linking citizenship to military service after the war provided a new course of action in that struggle. Acclaimed political theorist and feminist, Cynthia Enloe, pressed home this point in her examination of plural societies and the ethnic soldiers that are often called upon to defend them: When such groups discover upon demobilization that their political power is no greater than it was before conscription, they may be disillusioned . . . Their mistake was to believe that they were taking part in a nation-state process, that their maps and those of the authorities conscripting them were identical. One consequence of conscripts forming mental maps that are out of line with elite maps can be a post-war politicization of ethnic groups led by their respective veterans’ organization.22 For the American GI Forum, such organized action in the immediate postwar environment would also include vocal support for immigration restriction and the anti-Communist crusade typical of the McCarthy era. By contrast, as national support for the Vietnam War steadily decreased, the burgeoning Chicano Movement and its emphasis on social justice and ethnic empowerment exacerbated it within the Mexican American community. As described by historian Lorena Oropeza, “calling themselves Chicanos and Chicanas, [these activists] were no longer convinced that the route to equality, liberty, and freedom in the United States should rest on military service, unquestioning patriotism, and devotion to the nation. Indeed, they began to argue the opposite.”23 As these activists further emphasized, the structural inequalities present in American society literally channeled young Chicanos and other working-class individuals into the military at an alarming rate due to their inability to take advantage of the class-based possibilities for deferment made available during the Vietnam War, namely the student deferment program. As the most overtly 228

The Right to Bear Arms

class-based feature of the Vietnam War draft system, student deferments enabled youth from more affluent families to avoid the draft while enrolled as full-time students, a luxury that most Chicano youth could not afford. Accordingly, for Mexican Americans it seems that military service produced a wide range of ideological reactions, the ideals of each one often being in opposition to the others. The inconsistencies in American society produced various levels of disillusionment and outright anger that called into question some veterans’, most notably those that served in Vietnam, very identity as American nationals and the venerable tradition of military service expected of young Chicanos since World War II. And yet others chose the path of activism, but a type that emphasized patriotism rather than critical inquiry. Ultimately, these diverse politicized consequences and the social activism and redefined sense of self they generated are examples of the diverse and difficult process to secure first class citizenship across multiple generations. They remain the most prominent legacy of military service for the Mexican American community from 1940 to 1980. Another potential target for criticism that also prompted calls for reform (and which also provides a rich opportunity to underscore the connection between health care and social activism) were the psychiatric and medical services provided to wounded GI’s under Title IV of the GI Bill’s appropriations and administered by the Veterans Administration (VA).24 A variety of ailments, ranging from tropical diseases common to the battlefields of the Pacific and Southeast Asia such as malaria and jungle rot, alcoholism, exposure to Agent Orange during the Vietnam War, and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), have plagued the lives of returning Mexican American veterans. The latter psychological disorder has proven to be especially damaging, and in the case of Vietnam, the 1994 House Committee on Veteran Affairs concluded that Hispanic veterans suffered from PTSD at a rate of twenty-seven percent, while black and white veterans suffered at a rate of nineteen percent and fourteen percent respectively.25 The sheer size of the veteran population required an earnest effort to modernize, expand, and improve health-care services available to veterans, an effort that first began in the aftermath of the Second World War. The veteran cohort for this conflict, some sixteen million, included 670,846 Americans who suffered non-fatal wounds through a combination of combat and non-combat related accidents.26 So began a concerted effort to build new facilities throughout the nation, and, “in 1947 alone, the VA expended $153 billion in the construction of hospitals . . . By 1950, the VA administered 136 hospitals, which had a total of 577,715 admissions that fiscal year.”27 Public Law 293 passed in January 1946 and linked VA hospitals with medical schools, staffing the former with eager and innovative residents, while the establishment of “hometown care” the following year enabled veterans to obtain needed services through a local physician contracted by the VA rather than at an actual VA facility, which could involve long-distance travel for many. This hospital system would also service Korean War veterans, where 1,789,000 personnel served in the Korean theater of operations producing 36,940 killed in action and 92, 134 that suffered nonfatal wounds.28 In the case of Vietnam, the U.S. military commitment would ultimately reach 548,000 troops in the spring of 1968, producing approximately 58,000 casualties by March 1973, when the last combat troops left Vietnam. Another 270,000 were wounded.29 The VA was confronted with a challenging task in their attempt to provide adequate health care across these three generations, and many veterans became frustrated and angry with what they considered to be poor and cumbersome health care services. Furthermore, in an effort to provide compensation for all service-related injuries, the VA also began offering medical pensions after World War II, utilizing a rating system from zero to one hundred that was based “on the degree to which a disease or injury caused an ‘impairment of earning capacity’ to the veteran in civilian life . . . Pensions were based on economic concerns, and not necessarily on the severity of the injury.”30 The total cost of these medical disability pensions was unprecedented, averaging seventy-four million 229

Steven Rosales

dollars a month in 1950. Documentation became critical when filing a claim, which a review board ultimately approved or denied after a medical examination was conducted. If approved, the disability rating was simultaneously determined; it was periodically reviewed and possibly removed at a future date. This process easily generated conflicting opinions over the severity of a veteran’s injury and the extent to which the U.S. military should be held accountable, frequently producing angry veterans who somehow felt mistreated, even cheated, by the VA when their claims were denied. In addition to the above complaints, many veterans did not fully avail themselves of the medical and counseling services provided by the VA. In particular, Angelita García-Cabrera discovered that Mexican American, Puerto Rican, and other Hispanic veterans displayed a disturbing indifference to such services. Her conclusions, drawn from a questionnaire distributed to Hispanic veterans, ages nineteen through ninety-five, at ten VA hospitals in the United States and Puerto Rico, focused on the following four concerns: “(1) culture-related behavior; (2) language-related barriers; (3) geographical isolation; (4) lack of knowledge about the VA services.”31 As these problem areas illustrate, organizational ineptness and cultural insensitivity, including the lack of bilingual staff, were some of the more prominent barriers to increased utilization. An apathetic attitude toward “the system” in general and the VA in particular could also be reinforced by the caste-like nature of treatment, based on seniority, that often worked to the detriment of many low- and intermediate-rank Mexican American veterans. Moreover, cultural factors played a role, including the stigma often attached to mental illness and the tendency to suffer in silence or use non-traditional folk medicine. A subsequent analysis by Rosina M. Becerra and Milton Greenblatt confirmed these findings while examining a wide variety of social and cultural factors particular to the Hispanic veteran population from the three war eras in an effort to explain such under-utilization. The issue of discrimination received particular attention, and, as highlighted in Table 20.3 below, they asserted that Vietnam veterans were much more decisive than their counterparts in World War II and Table 20.3 Attitudes toward Discrimination (Hispanics Only, Percent Responding “Agree” and “Strongly Agree”) Questions Posed

WWII (N = 188)

Korean (N = 141)

Vietnam (N = 235)

Total Sample (N = 564)

VA doctors do not treat Hispanics with respect. VA staff respects feelings of the family of the Hispanic veteran. VA does not provide the Hispanic veteran with respect. VA staff treats Hispanic veteran with respect. VA has bilingual personnel to help Hispanic veterans. VA doctors treat Hispanic veterans the same as all veterans. VA doctors are not considerate of the Hispanic veteran’s family. VA doctors give same care to Hispanic veterans as they do to all veterans.

13.3 86.7

18.4 73.0

20.4 60.4

17.6 72.3

17.6

21.3

28.5

23.0

87.2 52.7 93.6

73.0 38.3 80.1

66.0 40.0 77.4

74.8 43.8 83.5

11.2

24.1

23.0

19.3

96.8

87.9

77.4

86.5

Source: Rosina M. Becerra and Milton M. Greenblatt, Hispanics Seek Health Care: A Study of 1,088 Veterans of Three War Eras (Lanham, Md., 1983), 90–91. Also cited in Lea Ybarra, Vietnam Veteranos: Chicanos Recall the War (Austin: Texas University Press, 2004), 9. *These percentages include only those who were familiar with VA services and benefits.

230

The Right to Bear Arms

Korea in reporting discriminatory practices.32 At first glance, Table 20.3 portrays a sample of World War II Hispanic veterans who overwhelmingly characterized the VA as respectful toward the veteran and his family and as providing services on par with those received by the entire veteran population. One noteworthy observation, however, was the less than satisfactory approval rating offered in connection to the availability of bilingual personnel. The overall positive appraisal by these veterans prompted Becerra and Greenblatt to offer a possible rationale: Vietnam veterans had a significantly stronger sense of being discriminated against than their older peers . . . The older veteran was more likely to accept discriminatory treatment because by doing so he had learned to survive as a minority person in a majority culture. He was more likely to say things were fine at the VA because the organization treated him similarly to how he had been treated by other institutions in the past.33 While open to discussion, this explanation merits consideration, given the contemporary practices that maintained a racial dividing line within the United States long after the Second World War. And so, as a health-care system, the Veterans Administration proved to be a complex and possibly frustrating experience for Mexican American veterans as they returned from military service with an assortment of physical injuries and psychiatric problems.

Conclusion As the above analysis illustrates, from 1940 to 1980 large numbers of Mexican American youth joined the armed forces because they deemed it part of their civic and masculine responsibility to do so. They hoped their military service was the first step toward the acquisition of many things: pride, first-class citizenship, monetary gain, and health care amenities. Military training and other benefits associated with military service, such as the GI Bill, did promote a bridging process in the pursuit of these goals for many veterans. A problem, however, is that there were costs to be paid for such gains in the form of physical and mental maladies acquired while in uniform that have plagued returning veterans long after the completion of their tours of duty. Meanwhile, many more Mexican American veterans experienced uneven implementation of their expected benefits. When combined with the larger social effort to maintain discriminatory practices, civil rights activism followed. The tactics of such activism varied during the forty years under examination, with a more strident form of critical inquiry emerging in connection with military service during the Vietnam War; nevertheless, returning veterans in all three cohorts were adamant in their effort to win the full privileges of citizenship through their military service. Indeed, the ultimate benefit derived from this matrix between the U.S. military, citizenship, and manhood was the changed conceptualization it provided of themselves and their placement in American society.

Notes 1 Ernie Pyle, Brave Men (Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press, 2001), 66–68. 2 Markers of identification for communities of Hispanic descent have become commonplace. I employ “Mexican American” to describe individuals of Mexican ancestry having U.S. citizenship through birth or naturalization. The term “Chicano” references the era of the Chicano Movement and the Vietnam War, roughly 1965 through 1975. Lastly, I utilize the terms “Latino” and “Hispanic” as all-encompassing forms of identification. 3 As part of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo that ended the Mexican-American War (1846–1848), citizenship was granted to former Mexican nationals who remained north of the U.S.-Mexico border. This

231

Steven Rosales

4

5 6

7 8

9

10

11

12 13

14

15

would begin a political association with de jure whiteness that was reinforced by the black-white racial binary that labeled Mexican Americans as part of the country’s white population. The 1980 census provided the option to self-identify as “Spanish/Hispanic origin descent.” Department of Defense, Hispanics in America’s Defense (Washington, DC: Office of the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Military Manpower and Personnel Policy, 1988). Altogether, the Hispanic community has earned thirty-seven such medals, the highest total of any minority group in U.S. military history. Two Medals of Honor were awarded in the Civil War, one for service during the Boxer Rebellion, one for service in World War I, twelve during World War II, eight for the Korean War, and thirteen for the conflict in Vietnam. While admittedly not an accurate indicator, by using birthplace, the awardees assumed to be of Mexican ancestry include the one recipient for service in World War I, eleven recipients for service in World War II, six for service in Korea, and eight for service in the Vietnam War, for a total of twenty-seven. However, it is my contention that the discriminatory policies encountered by the African American community prevented this community from receiving its fair share of our nation’s most esteemed award for valor on the battlefield. Lorena Oropeza, Raza Sí! Guerra No! Chicano Protest and Patriotism During the Viet Nam War Era (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005), 13. On the idea of a social contract, I am indebted to Cecilia Elizabeth O’Leary, To Die For: The Paradox of American Patriotism (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1999), and Claire R. Snyder, Citizen-Soldiers and Manly Warriors: Military Service and Gender in the Civic Republican Tradition (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc., 1999). George Mariscal, Aztlán and Viet Nam: Chicano and Chicana Experiences of the War (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999). Portions of this chapter are drawn from the following two articles: “Fighting the Peace at Home: Mexican American Veterans & the 1944 G.I. Bill of Rights” Pacific Historical Review 80, no. 4 (2011): 597–627; “Macho Nation? Chicano Soldiering, Sexuality, and Manhood During the Vietnam War Era” Oral History Review 40, No. 2 (2013): 299–324. Gina M. Pérez, “Hispanic Values, Military Values: Gender, Culture, and the Militarization of Latina/o Youth” in Beyond El Barrio: Everyday Life in Latina/o America, eds. Gina M Pérez, Frank A. Guridy, and Adrian Burgos, Jr. (New York: New York University Press, 2010), 169. Harley L. Browning, Sally C. Lopreato, and Dudley L. Poston, Jr., “Income and Veteran Status: Variations among Mexican Americans, Blacks, and Anglos,” American Sociological Review 38 (1973): 74–85. Data are derived from the U.S. Bureau of the Census, “One in a hundred: A public use of basic records from the 1960 Census” (April 1971). Melanie Martindale and Dudley L. Poston, Jr., “Variations in Veteran/Non-veteran Earnings among World War II, Korea, and Vietnam War Cohorts,” Armed Forces & Society 5, No. 2 (Winter 1979): 219– 243. Additional research that supports the concept of a bridging process includes Wayne J. Villemez and John D. Kasarda, “Veteran Status and Socioeconomic Attainment,” Armed Forces & Society 2, No. 3 (Spring 1976): 407–420, and Roger D. Little and J. Eric Fredlund, “Veteran Status, Earnings, and Race,” Armed Forces & Society 5, No. 2 (Winter 1979): 244–259. These latter two studies employed a “white/ non-white” subdivision. Nevertheless, both found a positive correlation between income and veteran status, which was especially pronounced for their non-white cohorts. J. Peter Mattila, “G.I. Bill Benefits and Enrollments: How Did Vietnam Veterans Fare?” Social Science Quarterly 59 (1978): 535–545. Examples include Oscar Lewis, The Children of Sanchez: Autobiography of a Mexican Family (New York: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, 2011) and David D. Gilmore, Manhood in the Making: Cultural Concepts of Masculinity (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1991). Octavio Paz, The Labyrinth of Solitude and Other Writings, trans. Yara Milos, Lysander Kemp, and Rachel Philips (New York: Grove/Atlantic, Inc., 1994). Another psychoanalytic profile of the Mexican national character with a particular focus on the aggressive posturing of the pelado, or lower-class male, can be found in Samuel Ramos, Profile of Man and Culture in Mexico, trans. Peter G. Earle (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1972). Scholarship that examines the linkages between state power, Mexican citizenship, machismo, and cultural productions include Sergio de la Mora, Cinemachismo: Masculinities and Sexuality in Mexican Film (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2006) and Robert Mckee Irwin, Mexican Masculinities (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2003). By comparison, monolithic depictions of the Mexican American male (and female) have an established precedence in U.S. Hollywood films. See Clara Rodríguez, Heroes, Lovers, and Others: The Story of Latinos in Hollywood (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004) and Charles Ramírez Berg, Latino Images in Film: Stereotypes, Subversion, Resistance (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2002).

232

The Right to Bear Arms 16 See Richard Rodríguez, Hunger of Memory: The Education of Richard Rodríguez (New York: Random House Publishing Group, 1983); José Antonio Villareal, Pocho (New York: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, 1970); Américo Paredes, “ With His Pistol in His Hand”: A Border Ballad and Its Hero (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1958). 17 Examples include Lionel Cantú, Jr., The Sexuality of Migration: Border Crossings and Mexican Immigrant Men, eds., Nancy A. Naples and Salvador Vidal-Ortiz (New York: New York University Press, 2009); Gloria González-López, Erotic Journeys: Mexican Immigrants and their Sex Lives (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005); Matthew C. Gutman, ed., Changing Men and Masculinities in Latin America (Durham: Duke University Press, 2003); Alfredo Mirandé, Hombres y Machos: Masculinity and Latino Culture (Boulder: Westview Press, 1997); Matthew C. Gutman, The Meanings of Macho: Being a Man in Mexico City (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996). 18 R.W. Connell, Masculinities (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995), 76. 19 A detailed analysis of the Felix Longoria incident and the connection between military service and civil rights activism following World War II can be found in Ignacio García, Hector P. García: In Relentless Pursuit of Justice (Houston: Arte Publico Press, 2003); Michelle Hall Kells, Hector P. García: Everyday Rhetoric and Mexican American Civil Rights (Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press, 2006); Patrick J. Carroll, Felix Longoria’s Wake: Bereavement, Racism, and the Rise of Mexican American Activism (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2003); Maggie Rivas-Rodríguez, ed., Mexican Americans & World War II (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2005). 20 Notarized statement, Beatrice Longoria, January 8, 1949 (estimated), File Folder 130.1, Hector P. García Collection, Jeff and Mary Bell Library, Texas A&M University, Corpus Christi. 21 Telegram, Lyndon B. Johnson to García, January 10, 1949 (estimated), File Folder 130.4, Hector P. García Collection, Jeff and Mary Bell Library, Texas A&M University, Corpus Christi. 22 Cynthia Enloe, Ethnic Soldiers: State Security in Divided Societies (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1980), 54. 23 Oropeza, Raza Sí! Guerra No!, 46. 24 This was especially the case after World War II. For example, one of the primary objectives for the GI Forum was improved health care facilities for returning veterans. 25 United States. House Committee on Veteran Affairs, Hispanic Veterans: Contributions to the Nation and Community, Receipt of Federal Veterans Benefits, and Related Issues (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1994). 26 Mark D. Van Ells, To Hear Only Thunder Again: America’s World War II Veterans Come Home (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2001), 96. 27 Ibid., 122. 28 Melinda L. Pash, In the Shadow of the Greatest Generation: The Americans Who Fought the Korean War (New York: New York University Press, 2012), 92. 29 Lawrence M. Baskir and William A. Strauss, Chance and Circumstance: The Draft, the War, and the Vietnam Generation (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1978), 2–4. 30 Van Ells, To Hear Only Thunder Again, 118. 31 Angelita García-Cabrera, “The Hispanic Veteran of the Armed Services and in the Veterans Administration” (Ph.D. dissertation, Brandeis University, 1978), 83. 32 Rosina M. Becerra and Milton Greenblatt, Hispanics Seek Health Care: A Study of 1,088 Veterans of Three War Eras (Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1983). Other studies conducted in the 1970s and 1980s further examined the mental health of Hispanic veterans and their non-utilization of such services, with a particular focus on the Vietnam War. These include Richard Strayer and Lewis Ellenhorn, “Vietnam Veterans: A Study Exploring Adjustment Patterns and Attitudes,” Journal of Social Sciences 31 (1975): 81–93; J.I. Escobar, Eugenia T. Randolph, Guadalupe Puente, Frida Spiwak, Joy K. Asamen, Maryann Hill, and Richard L. Hough “Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder in Hispanic Vietnam Veterans: Clinical Phenomenology and Sociocultural Characteristics,” The Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease 171 (1983): 585–596. 33 Ibid., 90–91.

233

This page intentionally left blank

CONTRIBUTORS

Paul E. Coker received his Ph.D. in 2011 from the University of Tennessee, where he specialized in the social and military history of the Civil War era. He is currently working on a manuscript on black Civil War soldiers and veterans. Clarissa W. Confer is an Associate Professor of History and the Director of the LaDonna Harris Native American Institute at California University of Pennsylvania. She is the author of The Cherokee Nation in the Civil War (University of Oklahoma Press, 2007), which explores the social history of Cherokee Indians during the turmoil of internal and external division, Daily Life in Pre-Columbian Native America (Greenwood Press, 2007), and Daily Life During the Indian Wars (Greenwood Press, 2010). Isaac W. Hampton II is the Command Historian for U.S. Army South at Fort Sam Houston, Texas. Hampton completed his Ph.D. in Twentieth Century U.S. History at the University of Houston. He teaches at Texas A&M University at San Antonio and San Antonio College. Hampton’s next project will examine the origins of Navy ROTC programs at historically black colleges and universities and the experience of blacks who served in these branches of the military during the 1960s and 1970s. Robert F. Jefferson, Jr. is an Associate Professor of History and the Director of the Africana Studies Program at the University of New Mexico. He is the author of Fighting for Hope: African Americans and the Ninety-third Infantry Division in World War II and Postwar America (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2008) and is currently working on a second book titled Color and Disability:Vasco Hale and Twentieth Century America. His articles on the relationship between African American GIs and their communities during the Second World War have appeared in Oral History and Public Memories (Temple University Press, 2008), the Journal of Family History, the Annals of Iowa, Quaderni Storici (Bologna), Contours: A Journal of the African Diaspora, and the Historian. Geoffrey W. Jensen is an Assistant Professor of History and Program Chair of Graduate Studies in the College of Security and Intelligence Studies at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, Prescott, Arizona. He holds a doctorate from the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville. His research interests reside within the milieu of civil rights reform in the United States Armed Forces during 235

Contributors

the twentieth century. He is currently working on a manuscript investigating the contribution of African American tankers fighting in the European theater of World War II. Michael Lee Lanning is the author of twenty-one nonfiction books on military history, sports, and health. More than a million copies of his books are in print in fifteen countries, and editions have been translated into twelve languages. He has appeared on major television networks and the History Channel as an expert on the individual soldier on both sides of the Vietnam War. He resides on the Bolivar Peninsula of Texas. Robert S. McPherson is a Professor of History who teaches for Utah State University, Eastern in Blanding. His writing and research is primarily focused on Native American cultures of the Four Corners area and the history of southeastern Utah. In terms of military history, in addition to articles and chapters concerning conflicts in this region, he has also published two staff rides (Bear River and Little Big Horn) and the book Under the Eagle: Samuel Holiday, Navajo Code Talker (University of Oklahoma Press, 2013). John H. Morrow, Jr. is Franklin Professor of History at the University of Georgia, where he specializes in the history of modern warfare and society. He is the author of numerous books and articles on the First World War, including the classic, The Great War in the Air: Military Aviation from 1909 to 1921 (Smithsonian Institution Press, [1993] 2009), The Great War: An Imperial History (Routledge, [2004] centenary ed. 2014), and the co-author, with Jeffrey T. Sammons, of Harlem’s Rattlers and the Great War: The Undaunted 369th Regiment and the African American Quest for Equality (University Press of Kansas, 2014). Eric L. Muller is Dan K. Moore Distinguished Professor in Jurisprudence and Ethics at the University of North Carolina School of Law and Director of the university-wide Center for Faculty Excellence at UNC-Chapel Hill. His writings on the wartime imprisonment of Japanese Americans include Free to Die for their Country: The Story of the Japanese American Draft Resisters in World War II (University of Chicago Press, 2001); American Inquisition: The Hunt for Japanese American Disloyalty in World War II (University of North Carolina Press, 2007); and Colors of Confinement: Rare Kodachrome Photographs of Japanese American Incarceration in World War II (University of North Carolina Press, 2012). Steven Rosales holds a Ph.D. in History from the University of California, Irvine, and a B.A. in History from the University of California, San Diego. His research interests include southwestern borderlands studies, the U.S. military, oral history methodology, and critical men’s studies with a particular interest in the various complexities/manifestations of machismo. He has published three articles and has one book manuscript in progress that examines Chicano participation in the U.S. military (1940–1975). Dr. Rosales currently teaches in the History Department at the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville. Frank N. Schubert retired as Chief of the Joint Operational History Branch, in the Joint History Office, Office of the Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff. He has written extensively on military subjects, including frontier exploration, black soldiers, and military construction, and has lectured at universities in Hungary, Romania, Serbia, and Germany. His most recent books are Hungarian Borderlands: From the Habsburg Empire to the Axis Alliance, the Warsaw Pact, and the European Union (Bloomsbury Academic, 2011) and Other than War: The American Military Experience and Operations in the Post-Cold War Decade (Office of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, 2013). 236

Contributors

Donald R. Shaffer teaches college-level history online and maintains a regular blog at cwemancipation.wordpress.com/. He is also the author of After the Glory: The Struggles of Black Civil War Veterans (University Press of Kansas, 2004) and co-author of Voices of Emancipation: Understanding Slavery, the Civil War, and Reconstruction through the U.S. Pension Bureau Files (New York University Press, 2008). Brian G. Shellum is a full-time writing historian with a focus on African Americans in the military, military attachés, and intelligence history. He retired in 2015 after nearly forty years as a defense intelligence officer, government historian, and army officer. He graduated from West Point, holds a graduate degree from Campbell University, and studied at the University of Bonn. He has authored two books, Black Cadet in a White Bastion: Charles Young at West Point (University of Nebraska Press, 2006) and Black Officer in a Buffalo Soldier Regiment: The Military Career of Charles Young (University of Nebraska Press, 2010), while his third book, A Pestiferous Rotation: African American Officers in Liberia, 1910–1942, is to be published in 2016. Matthew M. Stith is an Assistant Professor of History at the University of Texas at Tyler. He holds a doctorate from the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville. His first book, Extreme Civil War: Guerrilla Warfare, Environment, and Race on the Trans-Mississippi Frontier (Forthcoming 2016), is under contract with Louisiana State University Press. Julie Anne Sweet is a Professor of History at Baylor University in Waco, Texas, where she teaches a variety of classes in early American history. Her research interests reside in the colonial Southeast, and she has published two books, Negotiating for Georgia: British-Creek Relations in the Trustee Era, 1733–1752 (University of Georgia Press, 2005) and William Stephens: Forgotten Founding Father (LSU Press, 2010), and numerous articles with the Georgia Historical Quarterly, Native South, and other regional journals. Brian Taylor is a historian of the Civil War era who defended his dissertation, “ ‘To Make the Union What It Ought to Be’: African Americans, Civil War Military Service and Citizenship” in March 2015. His article “A Politics of Service: Black Northerners’ Debates over Enlistment in the American Civil War” appeared in Civil War History in December 2012. He will teach at Georgetown University during the 2015–2016 academic year. Mark van de Logt is an Assistant Professor of History at Texas A&M University at Qatar, specializing in Plains Indian history, culture, and warfare. Mark completed his Ph.D. at Oklahoma State University in 2002. He is the author of War Party in Blue: Pawnee Scouts in the U.S. Army (University of Oklahoma Press, 2010) and has published articles in the Journal of Military History, the American Indian Quarterly, as well as numerous other professional journals. He is currently working on a book titled Monsters of Contact, in which he analyzes traumatic encounters with Europeans as told in Caddo, Wichita, Pawnee, and Arikara oral traditions. James Westheider is a Professor of American History at the University of Cincinnati-Clermont College. He is the author of three books on Vietnam, Fighting on Two Fronts: African Americans and the Vietnam War (New York University Press, 1997), The African American Experience in Vietnam: Brothers in Arms (Rowman & Littlefield, 2008), and The American Soldier in Vietnam (Greenwood Press, 2007), and several book chapters and articles. David Williams is a Professor of History at Valdosta State University, where since 1988 he has specialized in the Civil War era and the Old South. He holds a Ph.D. in History from Auburn 237

Contributors

University and is author of ten books including A People’s History of the Civil War: Struggles for the Meaning of Freedom (The New Press, 2005), Bitterly Divided: The South’s Inner Civil War (The New Press, 2008), and most recently I Freed Myself: African American Self-Emancipation in the Civil War Era (Cambridge University Press, 2014). Richard Bruce Winders earned his doctorate in U.S. History from Texas Christian University. He has served as the Curator and Historian at the Alamo since 1996. Winders is recognized as a leading authority on the Mexican War and other areas of U.S.-Mexico conflicts. His works include, but are not limited to, Mr. Polk’s Army: The American Military Experience in the Mexican War (Texas A&M Press, 2000) and Crisis in the Southwest: The United States, Mexico, and the Struggle over Texas (Rowman & Littlefield, 2002).

238

INDEX

Acheson, Dean 193 African American 2; assigned to combat positions 217; attempt to reform racial climate of the armed forces and 219; black suffrage in Tennessee 103; Black Power and 217; black recruiters during the Civil War 55; “Buffalo Soldiers” terminology and 117–18, 121; combat refusal of in Vietnam 219; confederate recruitment of 80; court-martial rates of 216; “Dapping” and 217; Department of Defense reforms and 220; difficulty of service on family 78, 100–1; disappointment after service 156; display of the Confederate flag and 217; disproportionate service of 214; “Double Victory” and 227; early colonial service 27–8; exclusion from American military service 34; formation of radical black organizations within the armed forces 219; Fort Pillow Massacre and 78; “fragging” and 219; Glory and 51; growing extremism and 217; historic memory of service 31, 104; historiography of 3–5, 7, 51; involvement in the Civil Rights Movement 185, 217; lack of black officers 99; limited access to the National Guard and Reserves 215; membership in the Grand Army of the Republic 102, 107–8; memory of slavery and 103; Memphis Riot of 1866 and 99; motives for combat service 214; motives for service 2, 30–3; negative white view of 99–100; necessity and 28, 30–1; “Negro Day” and 103; northern segregation and 186; officer training school during World War I and 151–2; poor medical treatment of 78; positive white view of service 91, 154; racial stereotypes and 213; racial violence and 218; racism and 73, 153, 155; racism and the military justice system 216;

re-enlistment and 213; resistance towards in the American South 96–8; role as political advocates of their race 97; segregation of 158; service in the American Revolution 27, 29, 32–3; service in the American West 6; service in the Civil War 5–6, 51, 56, 73, 115; service in the French and Indian War 28; service in Liberia 139, 141; service in the Mexican War 41–2; service during Reconstruction 5–6, 95–6; service in the Spanish-American War 6, 109; service in the Vietnam War 7, 213; service in the War of 1812 51, 53; service in World War I 6; service in World War II 6; slavery 27, 31; systemic racism in the draft and the military and 214–15; the “politics of service” and 51–4, 56–8; Project 100,000 and 214 Agent Orange 229 Ali, Muhammad (Cassius Clay) 215 All Black 25th Corps 96, 101 Almond, Edward M. 158 American Colonial Society 139 American Expeditionary Forces (AEF) 151–2 American Federation of Labor (AFL) 192 American Legion 187 American Red Cross (ARC) 187 American School for the Deaf 187 Americo-Liberians 139, 141–2, 146 Anderson, John 144 Anna, Santa 43 Asian American 2; Chinese 172; Executive Order 9066 and 172; Filipino 172; historiography of 8; impact on family of service 174; judicial process and resistors 176–7; loyalty questionnaire and 175–6; motives for service 2; naturalization laws and 172; necessity and 173–4; Nisei Japanese 171, 173–4; post-Pearl Harbor attack and 172;

239

Index relocation centers and 173 (see also Granada; Heart Mountain; Jerome; Minidoka; Poston; Rohwer; Topaz; Tule Lake) Attucks, Crispus 28 Atwood, Harry 144 Augur, Christopher Columbus 128 Ballard, Wilson 143 Ballou, C.C. 154–5 Bates, Edward 55–6 Battle of Antietam 75 Battle of Bloody Marsh (St. Simon’s Island) 18–19 Battle of the Bulge 194 Battle of Bunker Hill 28 Battle of Chusto-talasah (Caving Banks) 65–6, 88 Battle of Fort Sumter 52–3 Battle of Fort Wagner 77, 80 Battle of Gettysburg 67 Battle of Island Mound 91 Battle of Iwo Jima 164 Battle of Milliken’s Bend 76–7, 80 Battle of Monterrey 40 Battle of New York 30 Battle of Pea Ridge 66, 70 Battle of Pearl Harbor 172 Battle of Pines Bridge 32 Battle of Poison Springs 69, 77 Battle of Port Hudson 76, 80, 105 Battle of Summit Springs 129 Battle of the Tongue River 128 Bean, Allen 144 Bell, David 215 Berlin Airlift 197 Biddle, Nicholas 73–4 “Bleeding Kansas” 85 Blinded Veterans Association (BVA) 188–9 Blunt, James 89–90 Boker, George Henry 105–6 Boston Massacre 28 Bourke, John G. 130 Boutwell, George 74 Boyle, William 145 Brady, Francis X. 203 Britton, Wiley 69 Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters 196 Brown, Arthur 143 Brown, H. Rap 215 Brown, John 52, 87 Brown v. Topeka Board of Education 189, 198 Bullard, Robert Lee 155 Bush, George W. 168 Butler, Benjamin 74 Camp Clipper 184 Carmichael, Stokley 215 Carney, William H. 77 Carr, Mark 20–1

Chippewa-Oneida 162 Christophe, Henri 32 Church of Latter Day Saints (Mormons) 40 Civil Rights Movement 183, 185–6, 198, 201 Civil War 85; fighting in Trans-Mississippi West 85 Clark, Chase 176 Clark, Tom 192 Clark, William P. 130 Clausewitz, Carl von 85 Clifford, Clark 197 Clinton, William J. (Bill) 167 Code Talkers Recognition Act of 2008 168 Coleman, Cyril 183 Collardet, Louis 157 Collins, Walter 215 Confederate States of America (Confederacy) 63, 65 Congress of Industrial Organization (CIO) 185, 192 Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) 186 Congressional Medal of Honor (MOH) 77, 117, 130, 133, 214, 220, 223 Connecticut Interracial Commission 184, 186 Connecticut Society for Crippled Children and Adults 187 Connecticut Society for Mental Hygiene 187 Connor, Howard M. 164 Connor, Patrick Edward 128 Conscientious Objector (C.O.) 215 Cooke, Nicholas 32 Cooper, Douglas H. 87 Cornwall, Isaac 187 Co-rux-te-chod-ish (Mad Bear) 130, 133 Crawford, Warren 215 Cree 162 Crittenden-Johnson Resolution 73 Crook, George 128, 130, 133 Curtis, Samuel Ryan 127–8 Daniels, Jonathan 193 Davis, Benjamin O. Sr. 141–2 Davis, Cecil F. 219 Davis, Jefferson 65 Dennison, William 74 Department of Defense (Pentagon) 213–14, 216, 219 Department of the Platte 128 Dewey, Thomas 193, 196 Dickens, Charles 184 disability history 186 Dix, John A. 74 Dodge, Richard Irving 133 Dotson, N.P. 187 Douglas, Frederick 5, 52, 54–5, 75–6, 171–2 Dred Scott decision 52 DuBois, W.E.B. 6 Dudley, Nathan A.M. 99 Dull Knife Fight 127

240

Index 8th Illinois National Guard 153; re-designated 370th Infantry Regiment 153 8th Kansas 79 Ellithorpe, E.C. 89 Emancipation Proclamation 90, 106 Estabrook, Prince 28 ETO-82 194 Fahy, Charles 197 Fair Employment Practices Committee (FEPC) 193, 195 5th Regiment U.S. Colored Troops 79 15th New York National Guard 152; re-designated 369th Infantry Regiment 153 54th Massachusetts 56–7, 77 59th Division (French) 153–4 Firestone, Harvey 145 1st Army 155 1st Cherokee Regiment 66 1st Choctaw and Chickasaw Mounted Rifles 65 First Confiscation Act 74 1st Indian Home Guard 70 1st Kansas Colored Volunteer Infantry 85, 90–2 First Nebraska Volunteer Cavalry 129 1st Provisional South Carolina Draftees 153; re-designated 371st Infantry Regiment 153 1st Regiment of Mounted Texas Volunteers 40 Fish, Hamilton 153, 156 Flipper, Henry O. 117 Foch, Ferdinand 154 Ford, John 119 Forrest, Nathan Bedford 107 Forrestal, James 197 Fort Belvoir 184 Fort Huachuca 184 Fort Leavenworth 191 Fortieth Infantry Regiment 116 45th Infantry Division 225 Forty-First Infantry Regiment 116 42nd Division 152 442nd Regimental Combat Team 171, 174–7 4th Army 154 Fourth Marine Division 167 Freedmen’s Bureau 99 French and Indian War 28 Fujii, George 175 Galvez, Bernardo de 32 Gbandi 144, 146 General Regulations of the United States Army 41–2 Gillem Board 194 Gillespie, James 144 Gillette, Lee P. 129 Gio 143 Gola 144, 146 Goodman, Louis 177 Gourand, Henri 154

Granada Relocation Center 174–5 Grand Army of the Republic 102, 105–6; African American membership in 102, 107–8; token roles and 109–10 Great Depression 145 Grebo 139, 144, 146 Green, John 141, 143–4 Greene, Christopher 32 Greer, Allen J. 155–6 gunboat diplomacy 139 Hale, Nathan 30 Halleck, Henry 74 Hamilton, Alexander 31 Hamilton, George 215 Hammond, O.G. 134 Harlem Renaissance 158 Hawkins, Eldridge 143 Heart Mountain Relocation Center 174, 176–7 Heasley, A.W. 79 Henderson, Thomas 41 Hints on the Medical Examination of Recruits for the Army (Henderson) 41 historically black colleges and universities (HBCU) 201–2, 204, 208–9 Holcomb, Thomas 2, 202 Holiday, Samuel 166–7 Hopi 162 “Indian Expedition” 88–9 irregular warfare (“partisan” warfare) 86, 88, 92 Jackson, Allen 187 Jackson, Frank 208 Janney, Samuel M. 134 Japanese American Citizens League (JACL) 172–4, 177–8 Jefferson, Thomas 31 Jerome Commission 134 Jerome Relocation Center 174 Johnson, Andrew 101 Johnson, Henry 153 Johnson, Louis 198 Johnson, Lyndon Baines 217; Félix Longoria and 228 Johnston, Philip 162–3 Jones, James E. 163 Kaw 162 Kennedy, T. Blake 176 King George III 31 King, Martin Luther Jr. 186; assassination of 218; decision to turn against the Vietnam War 217 Kissi 143, 146 Korean War 198 Kru 139, 143–6 Ku Klux Klan (KKK) 193, 216

241

Index Lane, James H. 90 Laney, Ben 196 Langston, John Mercer 55 Larrabee Fund Association 187 Latino Americans 2; American G.I. Forum and 227–8; approval ratings of military service and 220; civil rights and 227–8, 231; Chicano Movement and 228; G.I. Bill and 224, 227–8, 231; historiography of 8; income disparity between veterans and non-veterans 224–5; lack of deferments for 229; “la patria” and 224; Latin machismo and 224, 226–7; Medal of Honor and 223; Mexican Americans and 223, 230; motives for service 2, 223; PTSD and 224, 228; Puerto Ricans and 230; VA and 225, 229–31 League of Nations 145 Leckie, Shirley 119 Leckie, William 119 Lewis, George 145 Lewis, John 215 Liberia 139–40; Liberian Frontier Force and 140–5 Linard, Louis 153–4; memorandum and 153–4 Lincoln, Abraham 5, 51–2, 54, 67; and Emancipation Proclamation 73–5 Ling, David 177 Livingston, Thomas 85 Louisiana Native Guard 76 Loving, Walter 156 Main, Edwin 106 Malcolm X 186, 217, 219 Mangin, Charles 153 Mano 143, 146 Marshall, George C. 158, 194 Marshall Plan (European Recovery Program) 196 Martin, Joseph 143 Mary Ogden Avery Convalescent Hospital 187 Maury Rifles 105 Maxey, Samuel 68–9 McFadden, Joseph 132 McIntosh, James 88 McKellar, Kenneth D. 155 McNamara, Robert 205 Meskwaki 162 Mexican War (Mexican-American War) 8, 37; atrocities during 40; Christianity and 39, 42; race and 37, 39–40, 43; slavery compared to Mexican peonage 44; societal advancement and 43; Texas secession and 37; U.S. ambitions toward Mexico 37; views of Mexican Indians during 44–5 Miles, D.S. 74 Military Act of 1866 127–8 Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV) 214 Military Occupation Specialty (MOS) 216 Militia Act of 1862 75

Minidoka Relocation Center 175–6 Mitchell, Robert B. 128 Montgomery, James 79 Morton, Robert Russa 156 Murfreesboro Sparks Rifles 105 Murray, John 29 Nabors, William 144 Nada, Tom 176 Nana 116 Nash, Philleo 197 Nation of Islam, The 215 National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) 152, 183; Hartford Branch and 187–8, 192–3, 219 National Defense Act of 1916 201 National Urban League (NUL) 187, 213 Native Americans 2; assimilationists and 127, 131, 134; calumet (pipe) ceremony and 131; Cherokee 15, 17–18, 87; Cheyenne 117, 129; Chickasaw 15, 18, 87; Choctaw 18, 87, 162; colonial use of 17, 19; Comanche 117, 162; conflict between nomadic and sedentary tribes 131; Creeks 15, 17–18, 87; cultural life of 131–2; desertion and 70; the “Enemy Way” and 165, 167; Five Civilized Nations and 63; historiography of 3–4; influence on colonials 18–19, 21–3; internal civil war of the Cherokee 67; as irregular warriors 89; language used 163–4; motives for service 2; military service and racial identity 134–5; mistaken as enemy soldiers during World War II 166; Muscogee 87; Navajo 4, 161–3; Navajo spiritual stories used as a guide 164–7; necessity and 135; negative views of 21–2, 66, 68, 129–30; Pawnee 127; poor treatment of 69; positive views of 20–1, 69, 131; pragmatists and 128; racists and 128–9; refugee crisis of 88–90; relationships with white soldiers 133; resistance to Euro-American style of war 21–2; Seminole 87; sign language and 130; warrior ethos and behaviors of 18, 20; white jealousy and 130 Navajo Code Talkers Association 167 New Deal 196 New Military History (War and Society) 1–2, 9 Newton, Richard 143 92nd Infantry Division 152–3, 157; blame for collapse and 155; inadequate training of 154; racial accusations against 156 93rd Infantry Division 152, 157, 184 Ninth Cavalry 6, 116 9th Corps 154 Ninth Ohio Volunteer Battalion 143 Non-Judicial Punishment (NJP) 216 North, Frank 132–4 North, Luther 132–3 Nye-Lea Act of 1935 172

242

Index Office of Indian Affairs 63 Oglethorpe, James 15, 17–21 Omega Psi Phi Fraternity 188–9 187th Infantry 219 111th U.S. Colored Infantry 107 157th Division (French) 153–4 142nd Infantry Regiment 162 143rd Infantry Regiment 162 116th U.S. Colored Infantry 105 106th U.S. Colored Infantry 106 161st Division (French) 154 167th Alabama Regiment 154 120th Engineer Battalion 223 Opothleyahola 87–8, 90, 92 Osceola 68 Outley, Hansen 144 Palmer, Henry E. 129–30 Parham, Thomas D. 204 Pawnee Agency 134 Pennington, James W.C. 186 Pershing, John J. 153 Pike, Albert 89 Pitchlynn, Peter 68 Poston Relocation Center 175, 177 Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) 167, 224, 228 Powder River Expedition 127, 130 Powell, Colin 119–20, 122 Prairie View A&M University (PV) 202–3, 209–10 Price, Sterling 85 Prince Chapel African Methodist Episcopal Church 189 Purvis, Robert 51–2 Pyle, Ernie 223 racism 29 Ramsdell, Leroy 187 Randolph, A. Phillip 7, 196 Randolph, George W. 89 Reagan, Ronald 167 Red Ball Express 7 Red River War 127, 131 Reorganization Act of 1866 116 Republican River Expedition 127 Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC) 201–2, 207–9; social isolation of cadets and 207–8 Reynolds, John 17 Roberts, Neadom 153 Rohwer Relocation Center 175 Roosevelt, Eleanor 7 Roosevelt, Franklin 172, 196; Executive Order 9066 and 172 Roosevelt, Theodore 1–2, 9 Ross, John 65–7, 89–90 Roundtree, William 144 Ruiz del Moral, Don Romualda 20

Salem, Peter 28 Saloman, Frederick 90 Salvation Army 187 Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) 203–4 2nd Army 154 Second Confiscation Act 75 Selective Service 216 Selective Training and Service Act (Selective Service Act) of 1940 172 Sellers, Cleveland 215 Services of Supply (S.O.S.) 151–2, 157–8 784th Tank Battalion 7 758th Tank Battalion 7 761st Tank Battalion 7 17th U.S. Colored Infantry 105 Shaw, Robert Gould 79 Sheridan, Philip 133–5 Sherman, William T. 76, 96, 128 Shull, Lynwood Lanier 192 Sickles, Daniel E. 100 Simpson, Frank 186 Sioux 162 16th Division (French) 153 6th Division 152 Smith, C.S. 106 Smith, Edmund Kirby 77 Smith, William R. 207 Spanish-American War 141, 143 Stanton, Edwin 101 Staten, Moody 144 States Rights Party (“Dixiecrats”) 196 Steele, William 68 Stimson, Henry 158 Stones River National Cemetery 108 Student Army Training Corps (SATC) 201 Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) 186, 215 Tall Bear, Lee Ann 121 Taylor, Reeves 204 Taylor, Zachary 40 Tecumseh 68 10th Army 153 Tenth Cavalry 6, 116, 121–2, 142, 152 Terry, Wallace 217 Texas A&M University System 202, 207 Third Army 184 3rd U.S. Colored Cavalry 106 Thirty-Eighth Infantry Regiment 116 35rd U.S. Infantry 43 Thirty-Ninth Infantry Regiment 116 Thirty-Sixth Infantry Division 162 36th U.S. Colored Troops 79 Thomas, Allen Jr. 213, 219 Thomas, Alvin I. 202 Thomas, Charles L. 133

243

Index Thomas, Clarence 215 Thomas, Gerald E. 203 318th Engineering Battalion 184 370th Infantry Regiment 152–4 371st Infantry Regiment 153–4 372nd Infantry Regiment 153–4 368th Infantry Regiment 155; struggles of 155 365th Infantry Regiment 155 369th Infantry Regiment 152–5, 157 320th Barrage Balloon Battalion 7 Thurmond, J. Strom 196 Tidd, Emmett H. 203 Topaz Relocation Center 175 To Secure These Rights (The President’s Committee on Civil Rights) 194 Trobriand, Philippe Régis de 133 Truman, Harry 2, 171, 196; appreciation of military service and 192–3; attempt at a triumphant narrative on civil rights 195; debate with Ernie Roberts and 193, 197; desire for the desegregation of the armed forces 197; early racism of 192; Executive Order 9808 193; Executive Order 9981 2, 7, 191, 197–8; impact of Cold War on 193, 195; Isaac Woodard incident and 192; pardon of Nisei draft resistors 177; personal motives of 193; political motives of 193; President’s Committee on Civil Rights 193–4; President’s Committee on Equality of Treatment and Opportunity in the Armed Forces (Fahy Committee) 197; special address on civil rights 195; World War I service of 192 Tule Lake Segregation Center 174, 176–7 Turner, Frederick Jackson 116 Tuskegee Institute 156 20th U.S. Colored Troops 79 Twenty-Fifth Infantry Regiment 6, 116, 143 Twenty-Fourth Infantry Regiment 6, 116; Houston Riot and 152 Union League 104–5 Union Pacific Railroad 127, 134 United States Air Force 198, 206; Air Force Academy and Confederate flag 217; Air Force ROTC and 206, 208 United States Army 17, 132, 143, 151, 157, 162, 183–4, 197–8, 206, 208; influence of Native Americans on 17; military strength during the Mexican War 41; necessity as a motivator 55; pay discrepancy during the Civil War and 79; U.S. Military Academy (West Point) 79, 127,

141, 143, 145; white resistance towards African American troops 76 United States Coast Guard 172 United States Colored Troops 56, 103 U.S. Commission of 1909 140, 146 U.S. Loan Agreement of 1902 140–1 United States Marine Corps 2, 34, 198; African American service in 7, 33; Native American service in 162–3, 165–7, 202, 204, 208, 220 United States Navy 32, 139, 151, 162, 197–8, 202–4, 206, 209–10; African American service in 32–3, 42; challenges in recruiting and maintaining black officers 204–5; discharge of black radicals from 219; Naval Reserve Officer Training Corps (NROTC) 202–7, 210; The Office of the Chief of Naval Operations (OPNAV) 203; racial tension and 204; rivalry between USNA and NROTC 209; summer cruise and 208; U.S. Naval Academy (Annapolis) and 203, 205, 209 Universal Military Training (UMT) 196 Valley Forge 68 Van Dorn, Earl 66 Vardaman, James K. 151 Varnum, James 32 Veterans Administration (VA) 225 Victorio 116 Virginia Military Institute (VMI) 158 V-12 Program 202 Wallace, Henry 193 War Relocation Authority (WRA) 171, 173–4 Ward, R.G. 91 Ware, Eugene F. 129 Washington, George 28, 30–1, 68 Watie, Stand 65, 67, 89 Weeks, Ralph 133 Weer, William 89–90 Westmoreland, William 214 White, Frank 133 White, Walter 183, 192 Williams, Joseph 104 Wilson, Woodrow 201 Women’s Army Corps 162 World War I 139, 141, 143, 151, 162, 201 World War II 162, 165, 184–6, 188, 202 Wright, Alfonza 213 York, William 143–4 Young, Charles 141–4, 152 Young, Whitney 213

244