A Historical Overview Of African Americans And The Military*

By

Dr. Martha S. Putney

*Remarks delivered by Dr. Putney at Ford’s Theater at a National Park Service ceremony for the Civil War Soldiers and Sailors System, July 17, 1998

Tomorrow, July 18, will mark the 135^th anniversary of the assault on Fort Wagner by the 54^th Massachusetts Regiment of the United States Colored Troops. Numerous accounts and the movie "Glory" have pretty much brought this event to the attention of the general public.

This was one of the many battlefield exploits of African Americans during the Civil War. Before the war ended, black troops had been involved in hundreds of skirmishes and engagements including thirty-five major battles. They were with General Grant when Confederate General Robert E. Lee surrendered at Appomattox on April 9, 1865.

Some 200,000 blacks had served in the Union Army and Navy during the Civil War. They suffered some 68,000 casualties; some 37,000 of these lost their lives. Twenty-three blacks received the Congressional Medal of Honor: five who served in the Union Navy and eighteen in the Union Army including Sargent William H. Carney of the Massachusetts 54^th.

African Americans did not always have the door to the military open to them. Many of the colonies had laws, ordinances, or resolutions excluding them from the local militias. George Washington, commander of the Continental Army, issued a general order in November 1775 barring the recruitment of blacks. The government under the Constitution enacted legislation in 1792 banning blacks from duty in the state militias, which for all practical purposes eliminated them from service in the Army. The Marine Corps, from its beginning, was prohibited by an act of Congress in 1798 from enlisting blacks. No blacks were enrolled in the Marines until August 1942, more than six months after we entered World War II.

No legal restrictions were placed on the Navy because of its chronic shortage of manpower. The Navy, on its own volition did not enlist blacks after World War I; it reopened its ranks to them in 1932. The law of 1792 became the United States Army’s official policy until 1862. The only exception to this Army policy was Louisiana, which gained the exemption at the time of its purchase through the treaty provision, which allowed it to opt out of the operation of any law, which ran counter to its traditions and customs. Louisiana had permitted the existence of separate black militia units composed of free landowners.

Additionally, segregation, discrimination, and unequal treatment of blacks persisted in the armed forces until beyond the 1960s.

Despite all of these prohibitions, African Americans fought in most of the colonial wars. When the colonies faced an external foe, many of them permitted, encouraged, or gave inducements to blacks to join the fray. When the fighting ended, when there was no longer a need, blacks wee released from the militias.

Blacks entered the Revolutionary War at its beginning. Massachusetts did not authorize black recruits until after they had fought in two engagements. Because of the proclamation of the British and need, George Washington reversed his position and approved the enlistment of free blacks in December 1775, which the Continental Congress accepted.

During this war, blacks fought in every major battle from 1775 to the British surrender at Yorktown in 1781. Some 3,000 – 5,000 blacks served in the war. Only South Carolina and Georgia refused to permit blacks to join their militias.

The War of 1812 was mainly a naval war. The Battle of Lake Erie was the one great victory Americans celebrated. About one-fourth of the personnel in the squadrons on the lakes was black and portrait renderings of the battle on the wall of the Nation’s Capitol and the rotunda of Ohio’s Capitol show that blacks played a significant role in it.

Despite several British coastal raids incursions, most of the states refused to accept blacks into their militias and the United States Army made no effort to recruit them.

The Louisiana Battalion of Free Men of Color and a unit of black soldiers from Santo Domingo offered their services and were accepted by General Andrew Jackson in the battle of New Orleans, a victory achieved after the war was officially over.

A number of blacks in the Army during the Mexican War were servants of the officers who received government compensation for the services of their servants/slaves. Also, soldiers from the Louisiana Battalion of Free Men of Color participated in this war. Additionally, blacks served on a number of naval vessels during the Mexican War, including the U.S.S. Portsmouth, and the U.S.S. Columbus.

In 1866, Congress authorized the enlistment of blacks in the Regular Army for the first time. By 1869, four units (the 9^th and 10^th Cavalry and the 24^th and 25^th Infantry Regiments) were formed and were sent to fight the Frontiers Wars.

Known as Buffalo Soldiers, these men were involved in 100 clashes with the Indians. They received inadequate equipment, broken-down horses, passed down clothing, and inferior rations. And, they endured abuse from the settlers in the frontier towns. Yet, they did a remarkable job in advancing the settlement of the West. Eighteen of them received the Congressional Medal of Honor.

The main missions of the Navy between 1866 and 1898 were patrolling the seas and making goodwill visits to foreign ports. In the course of these missions, seven blacks received the Congressional Medal of Honor mainly for saving the lives of some of their shipboard mates.

Although several states had organized volunteer black units, only the Buffalo Soldiers were committed to combat the Spanish American War. These Buffalo Soldiers contributed significantly to the victories in several battles. Six of them received battlefield promotions to Second Lieutenant and six were awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor.

The goal of World War I was to make the world "safe for democracy." Yet, black organizations and leaders had to protest repeatedly for the commitment of black troops to combat. The Buffalo Soldiers were kept at home and Charles Young, the only black West Point graduate still in the service, was forced out of the Army despite his display of physical fitness. The 92^nd and 93^rd Infantry Divisions were formed. But they were never trained adequately, never trained as units, and had no combat support forces. Once in Europe, they were used as stevedores, longshoremen and service forces. Eventually they were assigned to the French Army where they were trained by the French, used French weapons and fought with the French, but never as divisions. They received French decorations. None of them, nor any blacks that fought in World War II, received the nation’s highest military award in the prescribed time frame. Two did receive the award for their valor above and beyond the call of duty during the Korean War and twenty during the Vietnam War (fifteen Army and five Marines).

More than one million blacks were in the service during World War II. About one-half served overseas. More than three-fourths of them were in the Army’s service and supply units, port battalions, engineer construction units, medical corpsmen, labor units. They were involved in every branch of the service and every sector of the war.

During this war, two Army divisions and several smaller units were committed to ground combat. Unlike the 92^nd Division, which was in European Theater, the 93^rd, which was in the Pacific Theater, saw very little combat duty. A smaller unit, the 761^st Medium Tank Battalion, was the most commended. The Tuskegee Airmen probably is the best known of the black units. It engaged in over 1,550 missions and its Fighter Group, the 332^nd, has been credited with having never lost a bomber.

About 150,000 blacks were in the Navy during World War II. Many of them served in the Steward’s Department or as mess men. Two ships were outfitted with all black enlisted men crews: the destroyer, U.S.S. Mason, and the submarine chaser, P.C. 1264. The Navy also commissioned its first black officers during this war.

With the beginning of desegregation of the armed services under President Truman’s Executive Order 9981 of July 1948, the dropping of the quota system, and the installing of the all-volunteer military force, more blacks proportionally were in the services than in any previous period, and more of them proportionally were committed to combat during both the Korean War and the Vietnam War than at any previous time.

A word or two about the women in the military: This year marks the 50^th anniversary of the Women’s Armed Forces Integration Act, which was enacted in June 1948. It gave women status in the Regular Army and Reserves for the first time. Yet, women were involved with the military at least as early as the Civil War Period. The activities of Harriet Tubman and Susie King Taylor during the Civil War have been well told.

Facts not generally known are:

That 4,000 black women were employed by the Women’s Nurses for the Union for ten dollars monthly.

That at least nine black women were on the Navy Hospital ship, the Red Rover, during the Civil War. (They were Betsey Young, Ann Stokes, Sarah Kinno, Ellen Campbell, Alice Kennedy, Lucinda Jenkins, Margaret Jackson, Nancy Buel and Sally Bohannon. The first five were listed as nurses and the others as laundresses.)

That eighty plus contract nurses were employed by the Surgeon General during the Spanish-American War. (Some were sent to Cuba and at least two died of typhoid fever.)

That canteen workers and house hostesses were sponsored by the Women’s Committee of the Council of Defense during World War I.

The Navy was the first of the services to put black women in its uniform and give them a military rating, Yeoman (F). It employed at least fourteen of them as clerical workers during World War I. It took a worldwide influenza epidemic before the Army Nurse Corps permitted eighteen blacks to enroll in 1918. They were discharged after nine months when the epidemic subsided.

The Army Nurse Corps reopened its ranks to blacks in 1941 and set a quota of fifty-six. Eventually some 500 served during World War II.

The Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps/Women’s Army Corps admitted blacks at it inception in July 1942. Some 6,500 served during World War II. Some 800 of them were sent overseas in January and February 1945 as the 6888^th Postal Battalion.

The WAVES (Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service) commissioned two black officers in December 1944. The war was over in Europe before seventy-two enlisted women completed their basic training.

Only a few enrolled in the SPARS (Coast Guard) when they were permitted to do so in October 1944. The Marines did not open its ranks to blacks until September 1949 when it enrolled two enlisted women.

By 1980, the service academies had enrolled black females. Two graduated from West Point in 1980. One graduated from the Naval Academy in 1981. It is interesting to note that the Naval Academy graduate, Janie L. Mines, was assigned to the dining halls at the Naval Training Center at Orlando, Florida.

Since World War II, women have served with the NATO troops in Europe, in Japan during both the Korean and Vietnam Wars, during Desert Shield/Desert Storm, in Somalia, in Haiti and in Bosnia.

As of March 31, 1996 some 59,00 black women were in the services with some 29,000 of them in the Army. The military is still having problems defining the role of the women in its midst.

The military has come a long, long way since Brownville, Texas in 1906 and Houston, Texas in 1917 where abuse by the townsfolk led to retaliation by the black troops and these troops were subjected to "Southern Justice." It has come a long way since World War II when discrimination and segregation were omnipresent. It has restored Henry I. Flipper to honor. It was bestowed the Medal of Honor on Corporal Freddie Stower, who had been recommended for the award in 1918. It has awarded the Medal of Honor to seven individuals for their heroic action during World War II. This was done after an extensive review and the finding of an Army’s funded research team. Six had been previously awarded the Distinguished Service Cross and the other the Silver Star. In presenting the Medal of Honor to the next-of-kin of six of the men and the one survivor on January 13, 1997, President Clinton said: "History has been made whole for these men."

Of the services, the Army had become a social laboratory, which it had proclaimed loudly and again and again in the past that it would not be. It had created a social model which American society at large could copy and improve upon